Furthermore, about 36% of all top 1 million websites are powered by WordPress. That’s anything but surprising, considering how easy this platform makes creating a website. Anyone, regardless of their designer or IT knowledge, can build a small but efficient website. Moreover, WordPress boosted the retail industry. Today, anyone can start abusiness within a day, spending next to nothing.

As it seems, WordPress is a cornerstone for success for millions of small businesses worldwide, and 2024 won’t be any different. So, let’s have a glimpse at the future and discuss the major trends and changes that will happen with WordPress over the next 12 months. 

Three Major releases

First and foremost, we need to address the roadmap for all changes that will happen in WordPress. In 2024, the platform will issue three core releases. First, we will see WordPress 6.5 around March. Next, 6.6 will appear around the middle of the year, most likely in July, and finally, 6.7 will arrive in early November. These dates are not set in stone, and 6.7 may come a bit early or a bit later, especially as WordPress would likely want to avoid any speculations of security issues regarding the US presidential elections. Moreover, as many renowned businesses will have to implement those changes, the releases will likely avoid major holidays, especially in the US.

The main focus for those releases will be Phase 3 of the Gutenberg project. While 6.4 laid the groundwork by extending existing features and exploring the collaborative aspects, the upcoming releases are expected to fully immerse users in collaborative web development experiences.

Designers are anticipating the introduction of the much-awaited typography management features, including a Font Library and server-side @font-face CSS generation with WordPress 6.5. This functionality will enable users to explore and manage fonts within the admin interface, offering an extensive library that is not theme-dependent but extendable for plugin developers.

V.6.6 will most probably focus on polishing outstanding features from previous releases. 

One of the main focuses of the long-awaited Phase 3 will be real-time collaboration within WordPress. Users can expect features such as real-time editing, comments, and feedback functionality, enhancing teamwork for content creation and website development. The roadmap also includes:

• Improved publishing workflows.
• Enhanced post revisions.
• An updated media and asset library.
• A search and command prompt functionality.

The best part is that these changes are primarily inspired by community feedback. WordPress will address SEO and digital marketing trends as well.

Voice Search Optimization

With more than 20% of searches in Google done vocally, unsurprisingly, WordPress will answer the call and optimize this aspect of organic traffic acquisition. Moreover, for 2024, experts are adamant that the voice search volume will increase to more than 8 billion individual searches monthly. That’s a good enough reason to consider refurbishing your SEO organization to follow the trend.

Indeed, voice-activated assistants have become part of our everyday life. The most popular in the US is Google Search, which has 85.4 million users. Next is Apple’s Siri has 81.1. million users. Alexa is third, with 73.7 million users. These numbers will only grow, as will the voice activation technology.

To answer the call and keep up with the trend, WordPress will become compatible with voice-activated search queries. By incorporating voice recognition technology, websites enable users to search for information effortlessly using voice commands. This approach aligns with the growing reliance on voice-activated devices for everyday tasks, including internet searches.

Even now, WordPress is collaborating with some of the best companies in the voice recognition industry. Over the next 12 months, however, voice search will become big. We expect many websites to integrate this type of user-friendly search. In other words, voice search is no longer a luxury. It’s a downright necessity if you want to be relevant. 

Thus, next year, developers will work tirelessly to create and perfect plugins that allow users to navigate the website through voice commands. This will enhance not only the UX of your website but also your SEO efforts. However, that is not the only SEO-friendly change in WordPress we expect in 2024.

Multilingual plugins

Multilingual plugins are not something unseen in WordPress. However, powered by AI, these handy tools will finally help your local SEO.

If you want to operate in Mexico, you must rank in the Mexican Google with Spanish keywords. So, until now, you had to work with plugins of questionable quality. Especially when the language was far less spoken – like Hungarian or Finnish, for example. Along with the plugin, you had to hire a local translator to fix the mistakes and make the language more natural. 

In 2024, with the help of AI, developers are set to finally make a multilingual plugin that will not only translate texts but will transcreate them instead. Naturally, this will increase customer trust and satisfaction, reflected in your sales. Moreover, it will open a line of communication with locals in their language, expanding your outreach.

Such an AI-powered multilingual plugin will significantly boost your SEO efforts in foreign markets. 

Dark Mode

In 2024, WordPress will finally accommodate designers, users, and programmers who predominantly work and surf during the dark hours. Dark mode is a designer solution that puts less strain on the user’s eyes in a dim environment. With most users surfing the internet after working hours and at night, most of them prefer the dark mode. Still, by now, one could add this option only through plugins. 

In 2024, WordPress will finally implement a dark mode option out of the box. This will lighten your website, increase the loading speed, and cut the need for additional plugins. More importantly, it will offer one less security breach possibility. At the same time, your users will have a much better experience translating into better Search engine rankings. 

One can wonder why WordPress took so long to add this otherwise small but highly convenient change. But it’s probably because WordPress finally decided to listen to and act upon the feedback. 

Better security with blockchains

Security has always been one of the pillars of a robust and growing business. Naturally, with every new release, WordPress enhances its security. In 2024, however, this will be a focal point in WP’s development. 

Firstly, WordPress will strongly encourage administrators to fortify their accounts with stronger passwords and Two-factor authentication (2FA). The method with a unique code is the most likely solution here. 

Automatic updates will also play a pivotal role in the security landscape of WordPress in 2024. Recognizing that an up-to-date platform is crucial for fending off potential vulnerabilities, developers will emphasize the importance of keeping WordPress installations current. Automatic updates will promptly apply all security patches needed to fortify the platform against emerging threats.

Enhanced monitoring capabilities will be another cornerstone of WordPress security in 2024. Website owners will be equipped with tools to actively monitor and detect potential security breaches, allowing for swift responses to mitigate risks. This proactive approach to security aligns with the WordPress community’s commitment to continuous improvement and staying ahead of evolving threats.

Furthermore, the integration of blockchain technology is poised to revolutionize WordPress security in 2024. Recognizing blockchain’s decentralized and tamper-resistant nature, developers will explore ways to incorporate this technology into the platform. Blockchain’s inherent characteristics protect against hacking attempts and unauthorized access, reinforcing WordPress as a secure choice for website owners.

This reaction from WordPress comes as no surprise in the age where cyber threats are at an all-time high. So, seeing the developers at the world’s foremost CMS platform taking it that seriously is quite a relief. 

Headless WordPress will rise

Another feature that’s bound to get more attention in 2024 is the Headless WordPress. Headless WordPress represents a decoupled version of the popular content management system, where the backend or management aspect is detached from the front end, allowing developers to create and manage the frontend independently using their preferred frontend framework as a standalone application.

This approach has already gained some traction due to its deconstruction of the traditional WordPress frontend experience. Instead of relying on conventional WordPress themes and PHP, a headless setup employs JavaScript and APIs to access the WordPress backend, retrieving content to display on the frontend. This not only provides increased flexibility for developers but also can enhance performance. 

The improved performance is a result of offloading processing to the frontend, reducing the server load and delivering content faster and more efficiently. Frontend developers benefit from increased freedom to use tools and technologies that best suit their needs, leading to better user experiences optimized for speed and usability.

We expect this feature to gain even more attention in 2024 and to see some plugins and themes designed explicitly for Headless WordPress setup.

AI integration will be at the forefront

Still, if there is something that will certainly get the spotlight next year, it’s without a doubt the AI. With 97% of smartphone users interacting with an AI daily, it would be a genuine surprise if WordPress did not put effort into integrating it into their systems. 

There were such notions back in 2023 as well, but WordPress is adamant that they will introduce their AI only when it’s ready. So, 2024 seems like a good year. After all, Google, Microsoft, and all other tech giants are scheduling releases of AI products for 2024, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if WordPress follows suit. 

One of the AI features we expect to see first in WP’s system is some sort of content enhancement tool. Using such tools, you might be able to generate blog posts or other content based on first-hand data from your website. Naturally, there are still some questions on whether Google will stop punishing AI content in its ranking. Furthermore, as seen by Chat GPT, AI has a long way to go before it can autonomously create an appealing and interesting text.

One thing, however, that will most probably be at the forefront of WP development is AI-powered chatbots, which will enhance the e-commerce experience infinitely. Naturally, such implementation into the core WordPress system will significantly boost any website’s appeal. Especially since it will reduce the need for additional plugins, thus improving the website’s speed and security. 

So, it will be a genuine surprise if WordPress does not introduce at least an AI-powered chatbot to its core abilities. 

Sustainability at the heart

Finally, WordPress, just like most giant tech companies in the West, has pledged to fight climate change. Thus, all WordPress changes will have sustainability at their core. Moreover, the CMS leader will double down their work in providing environmentally conscious solutions to all WP users, regardless of their needs. 

Optimizing code, reducing resource consumption, and improving site speed will be focal points in WordPress development. These efforts aim not only to create more efficient websites but also to align with the global shift towards eco-friendly practices. As the digital world becomes increasingly environmentally conscious, WordPress is poised to adapt, meeting the demand for sustainable web solutions.

One significant trend that will contribute to WordPress’s sustainability initiatives is Green Web Design. This approach considers a website’s environmental footprint and energy efficiency throughout its development process. By reducing energy consumption and harmful carbon emissions, Green Web Design aligns with sustainability goals and enhances the website’s UX and performance.

Streamlined design, featuring clean and minimalistic layouts with efficient navigation, will be emphasized to reduce site load times and power consumption. Light colors and themes, known for consuming less power on displays, will be pushed forward. Additionally, reducing data consumption through minimal data usage designs will contribute to sustainability efforts by lowering energy usage on servers and user devices.

This may sound like a small effort, but in fact, such a reduction will reduce a lot of carbon emissions in the long run. This corresponds with the ever-growing demand for sustainable solutions and lowering users’ carbon footprint in any way possible. 

WordPress will remain the best

2024, WordPress will remain a global website building and CMS leader. As such, they will stay at the forefront of developing new features and changing the entire digital landscape. So, if you want to be part of their evolution, all you need is robust hosting, which will seamlessly integrate WordPress into your website. HostArmada is just that. We offer lightning-fast website loading speed, robust security, and 99.9% uptime. Check out our plans and choose the one that best suits your needs. After that, you can experience WordPress on your own with a few mouse clicks. 

The post What to expect from WordPress in 2024 appeared first on HostArmada Blog.

This time around, WordPress has outdone itself with 170+ performance updates. However, the main focus of this release was, without a doubt, the site editor.

So, let’s dive deep into all the new and exciting things one can find in WordPress 6.3.

Site Editor as a central console

WordPress has gone far and beyond to create one stellar experience for designers, creators, and builders. The epitome of this vision is their refined Site Editor, which now brings templates, content, and patterns together.

New Navigation

Once you enter the dashboard, click on appearance and continue to Editor. The layout was introduced first in 6.2, but in 6.3, WordPress perfected the User Experience. Instead of “Templates” and “Template Parts”, now you have “Navigation”, “Styles”, “Pages”, “Templates” and “Patterns”.

If you know precisely what you’re looking for, you can call it up by using the search button at the top. If you were a fan of the Template Parts, don’t worry; they didn’t vanish. They were moved under “Patterns”.

Pattern Management is way better.

Being in the main menu, one can easily guess that WordPress has significantly improved its pattern management experience. Along with the template parts, inside the “Patterns”, you will also find “Synced” and “unsynced” patterns. Synced patterns are what we used to call reusable blocks. They can be found under “My Patterns”.

Naturally, just like the reusable blocks, these can be used across multiple pages. So, be careful when making changes there. Thankfully, WordPress color-coded synced patterns, so you can easily spot when you’re working inside something that will mess up your entire website.

Theme styles inside the Site Editor

While in previous versions, the styles button was stuck in the top right corner, now you can reach the different styles in the main editor menu as well. Though the change is not that significant for those familiar with WordPress, for newbies, such change can make a whole lot of difference. Now, users will see the available styles in the site editor menu, but if they want to edit their style, they will still get the same old sidebar on the right hand side.

There is a cool new addition there as well – the revision history. Through it, you can check older versions of your work and get back to a better style if you don’t like what you’ve accomplished.

Manage navigation on the Site Editor

This is another minor change for those familiar with WordPress but a huge game-changer for beginners. Allowing editing navigation from a centralized panel like the site editor will give beginners the peace of mind that they won’t have to look around to manage one of the most essential elements of their website. Previously, we had to add a navigation block, which, admittedly, was not that complex. Still, if you are a complete beginner, creating, editing and managing menus by clicking on the Navigation tab in the Site Editor will be a huge relief.

If you want to rearrange existing menu items, all you need to do is move them up and down. Creating and editing your menus is just as easy. Naturally, editing the menu will affect your entire website, so be careful when handling it.

Distraction-free mode is now in the Site Editor

The destination-free mode was introduced in v.6.2, but alas, it was available only outside the site editor. Due to the enormous success of this feature, however, WordPress added it in the Site Editor as well. All you need to do is go to the three dots next to the style button in the top right corner and click on “Distract free”. To exit this feature, just click Ctrl+Shift+\.

New Command Palette Tool

Keyboard shortcuts have always been a great way to increase your productivity while working on any program. WordPress recognized this long ago, and there are a bunch of keyboard shortcuts already operational within the website builder. Still, WordPress 6.3 went a step further. It created a command palette tool.

Press Ctrl+K (or Command+K if you are using a Mac) when inside a post or a page. A search bar will pop up where you can find a bunch of new useful shortcuts, from creating a new post or page to navigating to the site editor.

Third-party developers can also add their own commands since the command palette tool has an API.

The Block Editor is getting bigger

Two brand new blocks are now available in the 6.3 Block Editor. Though not that impressive at first sight, both block types will streamline the content creators’ work.

The Details Block

This block is invaluable in creating a stunning website. In practice, all FAQ, Trivia and “more info” sections are done using this precise block. Detail Blocks will show a headline, and if the user wants to learn more, they need to click and reveal the rest of the content.

As a bonus, you can add almost any block type in the hidden part, so this includes images, media or any other block. So, for example, if sensitive imagery is unsuitable for all audiences, you may hide it behind such a block, and if the user is interested, they can see the content at their own discretion.

Footer Notes Block

Creating a well-researched article or blog post requires citing all sorts of resources. While most often, this is done via a link to the source, you are sometimes using offline sources that one can not simply link to. In such cases, creating a footnote section is mandatory. Thankfully, now, WordPress has gone the extra step to give content creators the Footnotes block. This automates the process of creating footnotes and saves a lot of time for all writers.

Image block update

Images are the cornerstone of any website’s success. Unsurprisingly, WordPress has been working hard to accommodate its users’ needs. The tech giant improves its image block in every new release, and they are getting closer to perfection. Still, there is a bit more work to do.

For now, in 6.3, the image block will finally allow us to put an aspect ratio for our image.

In the settings bar, you will find the Aspect ratio, where you can use the image’s original ratio, make it square, portrait, 4:3, and a few other options. This will allow you to be more consistent with your images throughout your website. For example, all your blog post images can be precisely the same ratio and size. All you need to do is select a ratio and add a width (1200, for instance).

It’s a minor upgrade but will save you some time trying to fix your images through online photo editors or Photoshop.

Improvements all around

While the new tools and blocks are awesome, we can’t forget that WordPress spent a great deal of time working to perfect their user experience. One of the small changes that makes a whole lot of difference is the Top Toolbar improvement. In previous versions, the toolbar remained inside the working block even when you sent it to the top. Now, when you click the Top Toolbar option, the toolbar will get up beside the main menu. While not a huge difference, it seems much more elegant and smooth.

WordPress also took some advice from developers and upgraded the Padding and Margin Tool. Until now, when padding and margins were unlinked, they spread far and wide. The tool became hard to use. With the new tool, this problem is fixed, and now the padding and margins tool is well-contained.

The Cover block has also received some attention in WordPress 6.3. Much like with the Group Block, with the new version, users can choose a Layout for the Cover block as well. Moreover, the developers put some new design options in the settings panel.

In our opinion, some tweaks were not as successful, and we expect WP to revert them in the following update. The link control tool’s new features are one such example.

Link Control Enhancement

Link control is what we use to create inbound links. These links lead to other internal or external pages. In previous versions of WP, this was a straightforward tool where you attach a link to a specific anchor text. WordPress 6.3 enhanced this tool to include some questionable features.

The most impressive one is creating a page directly from the link control popup. We are not entirely sure why anyone would use this. Creating a page takes a lot of time and effort, and doing a brand new page because of a link seems a bit far-fetched.

For those who prefer to open their links in a new tab or window, WP moved the button under Advanced Settings.

Overall

The new WordPress design is genuinely impressive, and it shows that the developers at WP headquarters worked tirelessly to bring us improved user experience and performance. The site editor is definitely going in the right direction, and in a few versions from now, it will undoubtedly become a leader among website builders. Naturally, you need more than a fantastic website builder to have one astounding website. You need one outstanding hosting service provider. Naturally, you can always turn to HostArmada for a solution to your problem. We offer lightning-fast, tightly secured and highly reliable hosting service, which can complement the fast and secure build of WordPress 6.3. So, don’t hesitate to check out our offers and get your website on the net today.

The post WordPress continues to evolve with v.6.3 appeared first on HostArmada Blog.

So, today in honor of WordPress’s 20th Birthday, let’s dive deep into how two decades of this God-sent PHP delight changed the world for the better. 

Everybody loves WordPress

Twenty years ago, on May 27, 2003, Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little gave a start to a global revolution. They launched the first version (oddly named v.0.7) of the blogging CMS platform WordPress. The iconic name was given by a prolific blogger and friend of Mullenweg – Christine Selleck Tremoulet, who later became the co-founder of WordPress. 

The software of the platform was and still is written mainly in the PHP programming language, and it uses MySQL type of relational database for storing various components like pages, posts, settings and more. 

Credit: WordPress.org

Today, the CMS has a template system and a plugin architecture, which allows for high-end customization with little to no knowledge of web development. 

Over the years, WordPress has become synonymous with CMS. Today, 20 years after its inception, the platform has 65.2% of the CMS market. In comparison, the next best CMS system has only 6.6% of the market. WordPress’s dominance is simply overwhelming.

 At the same time, 43.2% of all 200+ million websites alive today use WordPress as a website-building platform. Furthermore, around 36% of all top 1 million websites use the iconic platform. Unsurprisingly, WordPress has been the fastest-growing CMS platform for the past 13 years. 

If that’s not impressive enough, according to w3techs.com, WordPress is behind 51.8 percent of the top 1000 websites, and every 2 minutes, a new top 10 million website starts using WordPress. 

That’s hardly a surprise, as the renowned platform worked hard over the years to become the role model of how a CMS system should look like. 

Evolution of WordPress

Since its inception, WordPress developers have tirelessly worked at making the entire platform the most user-friendly place on the Internet. In 2003 the platform was just a visionary CMS system that provided more accessible blogging. However, the developers constantly built upon this system through the years, so users will become even more satisfied. In 2005 WP introduced the Theme system, a new backend user interface, and a modified user role system. Three years later, they added the iconic dashboard we see today, as well as the Theme Directory. In 2012 with their 3.4 and 3.5 versions, WP introduced the theme customizer and a new media manager. 

With the rise of smartphones, WordPress began working on mobile experience and improvement of responsive images. In 2015 they implemented the groundbreaking changes that became the driving force behind the explosion of using mobile devices to surf the Internet. Today nearly 5 billion people, or 60% of the global population and 92.3% of all internet users, prefer their mobile phones as a primary surfing method.

In 2017 WP continued refining its interface and added new features. They also introduced the next-generation editor, including new media widgets, making the process of creating one truly stunning web page or blog post even easier. 

On its 15th anniversary, WordPress introduced the groundbreaking Gutenberg block-based editor, which entirely changed how websites were built. 

The next five years came and went with improvements in every aspect of the platform. This year, however, for their 20th anniversary, WP had outdone themselves. On March 29, 2023, they introduced v6.2 Dolphy. It reimagined the site editor interface and made it immensely better. So here we are 20 years later, and WordPress is still on top.

WordPress Today

Today WordPress is by far the most reliable foundation for any web-based business. What can be better than a platform allowing you to start your business in just a few hours? All you need to do is get a hosting plan (preferably from HostArmada) and install WordPress. Thanks to our partnership, implementing WordPress to a website hosted by HostArmada is practically seamless. Then, you must pick a theme and add all the plugins you want. If you have some coding knowledge, you can add some custom code to make your website even more unique. Finally, add some content and launch.

True, this walkthrough is oversimplified, but the entire process takes less than a day, and you can start a successful online business in just a few hours. Moreover, with WordPress behind your back, you can customize your website and add new features through plugins. And if something is not working, an enormous community of like-minded people will help you solve any issue you might face.

WordPress is more than a CMS. It’s more than a website-building platform. WordPress is a community of people who strive to enhance every aspect of the WP experience. That’s what makes WordPress so special. That’s its immense power, which made WordPress the driving force behind a global economic change unseen until now. 

How WordPress changed the world for the better. 

For just 20 years, WordPress managed to turn upside-down the global economy by empowering small-time entrepreneurs and micro businesses. It allowed them to have the same reach and output as the behemoths of their industry. For example, WordPress gave the means for small, mom-and-pop fashion brands to have the same reach as global mastodons like Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Armani. In addition, it helped spirited entrepreneurs with great ideas to start businesses, regardless of the lack of significant funds.

Unsurprisingly, a 2020 research estimated that WordPress alone contributed nearly 600 billion dollars to the global economy. This input is only growing; a year later, WordPress’s market valuation had increased to 636 billion dollars. And how can it be otherwise, as WordPress is the driving train of so many independent professionals? It helped countless web designers, SEO experts, content writers, and small-time retailers to start a successful freelance businesses, thus singlehandedly launching the gig economy. 

WordPress and the gig economy

It’s hard to imagine today’s gig economy without WordPress. If you haven’t seen this term yet, the gig economy is a flexible economic structure that relies on providing services from independent professionals through digital platforms. In plain terms, instead of having several in-house professionals, you rely on countless freelancers who work on a project basis. This makes the gig economy highly cost-effective for businesses, which saves money on hiring professionals, paying them regardless of the workload. Moreover, it gives the labor force flexibility to work when they are most productive and independence to choose the projects and manage their own time. Furthermore, it provides professionals with higher hourly pay than what they will get if they work full-time. 

All of this would be impossible without WordPress. First and foremost, being an open-source CMS, WordPress offers a platform where freelance web designers can use a vast library of themes and plugins to create professional-looking websites at a minimum cost. Moreover, software developers can use the platform to establish their presence by developing plugins and offering a paid enhancement afterward. The biggest benefit, however, is to freelancers with little to no web development and IT knowledge. Those can be artists, writers, designers, architects, or anything else. With WordPress, they have an outstanding opportunity to build one truly inspiring portfolio without any external help. Moreover, they can make it in less than a day and start offering their services as soon as possible. 

Last but not least, we must mention how WordPress changed the online retail business entirely.

WordPress and e-commerce 

With a fifth of all purchases this year expected to be done over the Internet, the importance of e-commerce in today’s society is hardly a surprise. Over the past year alone, e-commerce sales have increased by 10.4%, accounting for 6.3 trillion dollars of the global market. The lion’s share of these profits goes to WordPress users, as WooCommerce is by far the most widely used e-commerce platform worldwide. Moreover, WooCommerce is the most commonly downloaded WordPress plugin, with over 211 million users.

The e-commerce plugin has 36.68% of the market share, and about 20% of all WordPress websites have installed WooCommerce. Needless to say, WordPress has given a significant boost to many small-time retailers, family businesses, and entrepreneurs. Without it, the financial requirements to start an online store are a barrier few can cross. For us regular folk, this revolution brought more competition on the market, driving prices down and quality up. It’s a win-win for everyone involved.

This is the beauty of the change WordPress brought to the world. It snuffed out the financial aspect of creating and distributing a product, thus flooding the market with all sorts of amazing gadgets, outstanding products, and helpful services at competitive prices. Most importantly, thanks to this massive digitalization, the global economy not only didn’t collapse during the Pandemic, but WordPress and its innovations made sure new businesses, services, and ideas could spread to everyone, regardless of the vendor’s financial capabilities and web-development knowledge. 

This is the immense power of WordPress. It drove the global economy to a new, unprecedented stage. Thanks to WP, everyone has the chance to succeed, regardless of where they are from, their background, and how much capital they have. It’s a revolution, and we are glad to be part of it. So…

It’s Party Time

With such an astounding achievement behind their backs, just 20 years after their inception, it’s really not a surprise that so many people are hyped for celebrating the anniversary. Over 150 events across six continents and more than 50 countries will mark this extraordinary date. If you want to become part of the celebrations, find the nearest event through the dedicated WP20 website. 

Happy Birthday, WordPress, from all of us here at HostArmada.

The post Twenty years of changing the world for the better. Happy Birthday WordPress appeared first on HostArmada Blog.

What is Google Helpful Content Update?

The Google Helpful Content Guide is a small document that allows website owners, bloggers, and SEO specialists to glimpse at what Google considers valuable for its users. So, naturally, this is a blueprint for getting your website, blog post, or product at the top position on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). As users’ behavior changes over time, so do these guidelines. After all, Google’s main objective is to deliver its users the best experience, and it does so by showing the best results based on the users’ behavior.

You might wonder, can’t you do what you do and ignore Google as a factor in your content creation? The answer, of course, is yes, you may. But with 70,000 searches each second, Google is still the best way to get free traffic to your website, blog, or product pages. So following Google’s guidelines, although not mandatory, it’s highly recommended.

Will Google’s algorithm update change your ratings?

If you’ve always been meticulous about your website content and have done a great job at your SEO, you shouldn’t worry. Although a game-changer, the update still has the user’s best interests in mind. So if you offer genuinely good and informative content, you can only benefit from this update.

One unique thing about this change is the algorithm’s scope on your website. Until now, the crawlers checked only the particular page for trustworthy content and other signs of fraudulence. However, now your whole website will be under the lens. So if your website contains some untrustworthy content or other elements that might push Google crawlers away, you need to delete them as soon as possible. If not else, this GHCU gives you the excuse to do some spring cleaning on your website and get rid of old and untrustworthy content if you have such.

You have nothing to fear if you run a genuine and trustworthy website. On the other hand, those running shady web pages who try to get between Google’s fences and climb to the top spot in the SERP will be hit the hardest. However, consider going through your content and fact-checking everything to be safe.

Naturally, if you have a massive amount of content, it would be difficult to pinpoint the article that might be problematic. Going through your content might be interesting, but it is not time-efficient. A better plan is to use Google Search Console since Google won’t notify you of a problem with your content, but you will notice a drop in SERP positions on some keywords. A quick analysis of the results will pinpoint the weak link so you can change your content or delete it all together. You will also notice a drop in your visits through Google Analytics. This is the best way to analyze the full impact of the algorithm change.

On the plus side, if you were meticulous with your content, you may gain some SERP spots while others suffer through Google’s changes. So basically, the update is bad news only for those who tried to cheat Google previously.

How will the update change SEO strategies?

In general, GHCU does not demand any changes. SEO is always about satisfying your audience’s needs first. So if you have a good SEO on your website that doesn’t try to fraudulently “persuade” Google crawlers that it’s the best content for a particular keyword, there is nothing to change. The modifications that Google implements now are actually trying to push everyone to follow the best SEO practices, so if you are in line with them, keep up the good work.

Still, you might have doubts about whether your website is good enough, so let’s go through some of the most significant changes that will determine your SERP position.

Google’s golden rule

There is one rule above all else – people first, customers second, bots – last” This is the holy scripture of brilliant SEO. Search engines, as a rule, care little about your content. What they care about, however, is what their users think about your content, so writing about people and not bots is instrumental for your success.

Forget about plagiarizing

Plagiarism is a disgusting method of profiting from someone else’s work without their approval. It’s immoral and legally jeopardizing. So never sink so low as to copy another person’s hard work and claim it as your own. Google goes a step beyond, as it can flag as plagiarized any content that was “heavily influenced” by another one. Although that’s not actually plagiarism, it’s still a breach of Google’s trust. Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t get information from other websites, but make sure to add something from you – an analysis, comment, or just an observation.

Leave AI outside of the content.

While AI is definitely the future in almost any aspect of marketing, content writing is very far from being ready to be replaced by a robot. Mostly because AI can’t conclude various perspectives, can’t offer first-hand knowledge, and can’t bring that extra flair only a true professional can infuse when talking about an issue they care about.

Keep content relevant

We know you have various interests all across many fields and industries. Your audience does not. Or at least they are not on your website for that.

For example, if you sell high-end shirts, your audience will be interested in textile or fabric information. They won’t be so keen to learn what you think of last night’s episode of the current viral show. So keep your content to your niche and deviate only when you know you can add some value to your audience, not only because a topic is viral at the moment.

Keep it short and sweet.

While being a bit detailed with your blog posts is fine, going overboard and over-explaining everything will do more harm than good. So better stick to the point of your posts and make sure you don’t go overboard.

What Google will prize from now on

As you can see, Google is quite demanding on what not to be done. However, if you want to go beyond and go straight to the first spot at the SERP, you need to follow a few extra steps.

Google will finally reward expertise.

Google has gone one step further in offering its users the best solution to their problems. This change was long coming, and we are happy that finally being an expert will give you bonus points. There will be no penalties if you are not an expert, but expertise will be pushed forward, allowing the users to get the best and most accurate answer to their queries. Naturally, that shouldn’t be a problem, as most website owners are experts at what they do. You can’t really be an electronics business owner without having some expertise in the field. Moreover, you know the business from the inside and have some insider knowledge, so if you are not a fraudulent website, you shouldn’t worry about this change.

However, being an expert is not enough. You will have to choose your blog topics carefully. Just because the keyword was trending, writing on a random theme is not a recipe for success. Stick to your field of experience and what’s relevant to your audience, and you will be golden.

Adding value is mandatory.

You might be a brilliant writer and a recognized expert in your field, but if you don’t add value to your content, Google won’t recognize you as a viable first choice for their search results. This is because many people just list the problems without really giving a solution, which contradicts Google’s desire to provide its users with the best and most reliable answers to their questions fast.

So from now on, only content with added value will be eligible for the first spot. This means you will have to add some solutions to the problems and give some examples, some first-hand experiences, or a unique perspective on the topic.

Show, don’t tell

However, what will truly bring your website some huge benefits is google’s new motto, “show, don’t tell.” Yes, the search engine giant will give you additional scores for unique, entertaining, and, most importantly, relevant pictures, gifs, and videos to illustrate your point. Of course, mobile-friendly visuals, with good quality and resolution, is a must if you want to get the bonus points.

One question, one answer

Mixing several topics into one blog post might sound like a good idea, especially with the opportunity to try and list more than one long tail keyword in only one content. However, Google will penalize this behavior from now on. The main argument here is that people come to a particular page searching for an answer to a specific question. So having 5-6 questions answered in one post is definitely not user-friendly. It devalues the post and makes it only a sketch of a real answer.

If you want to target different keywords, just make additional posts. Moreover, this will help you fill your blog, and you won’t have to wonder what to post next week. On the other hand, you don’t have to write needlessly long posts. If you don’t have enough to say, 1000 words or so are quite enough for Google to deem you worthy, as long as you follow all previously mentioned rules.

Be decisive with your answer

Most important, however, is to give your audience a clear, fully comprehensible answer that doesn’t leave any doubt in their mind about what is the solution to their problem. In this sense, forget terms such as “in my opinion” and “Take that with a grain of salt” when concluding your exposition. Instead, end your text firmly, believing in your expertise and knowing you have the correct answer to the question asked.

On the other hand, never give conclusive answers that facts can’t prove. You can provide your own understanding and rely on your experience and expertise, but you need to acknowledge the fact that there is no conclusive answer to the question at hand, and to your best knowledge, you are correct. Naturally, it would be best if you did it in smoother terms.

Speed is still very much a factor

One of the key characteristics that Google looks for in a page for its SERP’s number one spot is the load speed. In this sense, a slow website or an unfortunate server crash can ruin your chances of becoming Google’s favorite website. To avoid this, you need a speedy, secure, and stable hosting service. HostArmada is just the place to get them. With its cloud-based servers, you will never experience downtime and enjoy lightning-fast speed, top-notch security, and guaranteed stability. So check out our offers and contact us to help choose the best plan that suits your needs.

What to remember?

Google’s new update is a game changer that solidifies the best SEO practices. In this sense, if you have followed these standards, you have nothing to worry about, as you will most likely win from the whole turmoil. Still, it’s a good idea to go through your Google Search Console and Google Analytics just to see if there are some drops in your performance. If there are, pinpoint the problem and follow the guidelines to make your content irresistible for Google.

The post Google’s Helpful Content Update: Everything you need to know appeared first on HostArmada Blog.

With the above in mind, we would like to thank you for being amazing, and we want to assure you that we value every drop of provided feedback. It is invaluable to us, and without it, we will not be able to push our limits and improve our service, thus making your experience in the process better and better!

We urge you to continue reading, as we have a lot to share, and at the end of this post, we will leave a small gift which we are sure you will appreciate!

Longer billing cycle price updates

Our team has received numerous requests to reward people willing to trust us with their project long-term, and of course – we delivered. We are happy to announce that customers who are eager to commit to our biennial and triennial billing cycles for our shared hosting plans will enjoy a much better deal when compared to the annual plan. To present the price difference we have added an option to all our pricing tables for Shared Hosting plans that will allow our clients to understand our new pricing model before purchasing a plan.  

picing-tables-changes

We believe that the pricing method is a fair way to reward people who believe in our vision and trust us enough to commit for a more extended period. People who prefer using an annual subscription should not feel disheartened. Despite the slight price regulation, our prices are still one of the most affordable on the market compared to other providers. You receive a highly optimized solution with either NGINX or LiteSpeed, free cPanel, premium technical support from industry experts with more than ten years of experience in the field!

If you are still doubtful about HostArmada, check our reviews and hear what our customers have to say about our services. Perhaps you are still not sure which plan best suits your needs? Hop onto our live chat or give us a call to receive top-notch consultation from our representatives and have them confirm if your project is going to perform as you expect(or beyond) on our servers. If you have second thoughts – we’ve got you covered with our 45 days money-back guarantee period.

Should you not find us a good fit for you, you can receive full reimbursement on all hosting expenses – no questions asked. We pledged ourselves to build a robust, fast, and secure environment for our customers. We are very passionate about what we do, and we are sure you, as our clients, will appreciate the effort we put into every case – from the most simple one to the most complicated one.

Monthly billing options

For those who prefer to pay for a service monthly, similar to how Netflix, AppleMusic, and gym memberships work – we have great news! Starting today, any new prospect who wants to sign up will have the option to do so with our monthly billing cycle. Our existing customers who are currently using Annual plans will also have the opportunity to downgrade their billing cycle from Annual/Biennial/Triennial to Monthly at the end of their term.

Given how monthly billing cycles work and the minor client commitment involved, we decided to exclude any discounts from the monthly cycles. However, should you start using our services with our monthly plans and you choose to upgrade to a higher billing cycle – you can take advantage of any current promo we are currently running!

Final Words

For all of the HostArmada users who signed up before today, we will be grandfathering the pricing that you have signed up with initially. If you would like to have the same readjusted to the new one, please reach our live chat representatives to adjust it accordingly.

Assuming you have made it this far in the article, we would like to let you in on something we promised at the start. For those of you that already purchased our services, feel free to contact our sales agents over the live chat in the next two weeks: 26th September – 11 October 2021. You will be able to claim an exclusive renewal discount for your hosting service for 30% off (based on the new pricing scheme explained above), regardless of the billing cycle.

For visitors who are about to purchase the service for the first time – we have added a 70% discount code to the shared hosting plan at the end of the registration process, which will apply to all packages in that category.

As usual, we will be happy to hear your feedback, so please let us know through all of our support channels – chat, email, support ticket, or phone and share your thoughts.

The post The return of the best Web Hosting Deals appeared first on HostArmada Blog.

The Future’s in the Cloud

That title can be taken quite literarily, in fact. Virtualization technology seems to be more than just our future; it’s our present. As more and more businesses join the Cloud, it continues to develop in its usability and functionality.

Even HostArmada uses cloud-based solutions because that is what’s best for our clients and our server infrastructure. Cloud computing is all around cost-efficient, and not just web hosting companies can use it for their growth.

It’s all nice to talk about improvements, but you probably want some idea of how these improvements will benefit us? For one, cloud computing can make the internet perform faster, better, and stronger with increases in storage capacity combined with modular software, yielding high-quality fast-loading services and applications. Beyond the upgrades to performance and utilization, the Cloud is proving to be the economical solution, exactly because of its virtualization capabilities.

Zero Trust in Cybersecurity is a center stage web hosting trend

In one of our previous blog posts, we already mentioned that the recent spike in hacks and exploits, both by formal and informal disruptive elements and threat actors, has caused the global information technology community to take a step back and a long, long look at the way everyone handles digital security. The victims of massive cyberattacks and leaks haven’t only been big businesses like Microsoft or smaller ones like Solarwinds and governments across the globe whose agencies have been shocked awake about the reality. A reality that involves the adoption of Zero Trust in internal and external networks at all access points.

Zero trust solutions like 2FA (two-factor authentication) and VPN (Virtual Private Network) are becoming more common-place and for good reasons. Cybersecurity web hosting trends do not lie with the statistics they provide. Web Hosting companies are taking a different approach to how they handle home office workers. And so should anyone else handling their business over the internet or when working with freelancers!

Rise of Managed Web Hosting

Managed hosting happens when a web host handles the setup, management, and support of a server and or application. These kinds of web hosting packages try to simplify a customer’s life and allow them to focus on their project instead of bothering with maintenance and technical support. Many web hosts will be innovating further in this regard, providing managed and optimized hosting to specific kinds of applications like WordPress, for example. What does this all mean for the end-user and anyone looking to start their own online project? It means that the internet and creating a website are becoming more and more accessible. Tech experts take the lead in helping customers bring their dreams into reality by taking care of much of what having a server entails.

HostArmada is looking at innovating this side as well, perhaps even adding more than just our Managed VPS and Dedicated Servers in the future. So keep an eye out as we aim to provide you with the latest cutting-edge web hosting solutions!

Value Addition makes all the difference

As web hosting standards continue to change and improve, web hosts will be forced to either upgrade or be outperformed. That is a web hosting trend fact! Nowadays, many web hosts expect a customer’s patronage without actually stopping to think whether or not they are adding any more value for the price listed compared to their competitors. Typically, clients want to see good performance and reliability from their web hosting package. But that is just what is expected. That is the minimum. The natural competitiveness of a web hosting package is the value addition it provides. What does that mean? It means whether or not the features it offers bring it above the other offers on the market. Anti-malware tools, analytics, CDN, technical support, and many others make up the list of possible features a web hosting company can provide its customers.

This will make or break web hosts who aren’t adding enough value to their web hosting package. This is why we at HostArmada will continually work to provide you with all the tools necessary to run your online project with us.

Breaking down of traditional data centers

As we already started talking about before at the beginning of this blog post, the Cloud is the future. And thanks to its advances and rapidly increasing widespread usage, traditional data centers are becoming less and less relevant. Companies are shutting down or refusing to create their own data centers in favor of already established providers. It is predicted that by 2025, 78% of enterprises will shut down their traditional data centers.

Decreases in spending upon traditional data centers mean increased dependence on cloud-based servers and collocated data centers. While this is primarily motivated by reduced spending, an argument can and will be made, successfully, in favor of the better performance that comes from moving away from traditional data centers towards cloud and collocated solutions. We have the first-hand experience proving this to be a fact as our own web hosting solutions are Cloud-based!

Conclusion

We hope you have enjoyed these 5 web hosting trends of 2021 that we have provided for you in this latest HostArmada blog post. As always, we intend to keep you up to date with the latest developments and relevant news concerning the tech sector and, of course, our field of web hosting.

If you have any questions, suggestions, or concerns, feel free to reach back to us at any time. HostArmada remains ready to be deployed 24/7!

The post The Top 5 Web Hosting Trends in 2021 appeared first on HostArmada Blog.

These scenarios happen pretty often with big and busy websites. The most common reasons (but not limited to), based on our experience, are the number of images uploaded on the website and the number of cache files generated by some caching plugins. 

Alright, but what should I do when I reach the limit of inodes for my Web Hosting Account?

Keep on reading because, in the following lines of this post, we will show you an easy-to-follow, quick trick to maintain the inodes usage of your web hosting account in its healthy boundaries!

So, what an Inode is? 

By definition, an Inode is a structural component of a Unix-based file system. It is used to describe a file or a folder, and typically for each file/folder, a single Inode is being consumed. In simple words – if the inode consumption of your web hosting account is 15 000, this means that on your web hosting account, there are 15 000 files/folders. 

For example, you can imagine a single Inode as the box or package your smartphone came in. The package will always have the product description as well as the content of the package. Similarly, an Inode contains information about a single file such as ownership, access mode (read, write, execute permissions), and file type.

Why does the Inode usage grow in time?

Today, many websites are based on open-source platforms such as WordPress, Drupal, Magento, Prestashop, and many more. When you install such a platform, it comes with a certain number of files/folders that cannot be reduced. In fact, the default installation of such a platform is merely the beginning of the inode consumption. Here is a breakdown of how many inodes each of the said opensource platforms utilize when you get it installed:

• WordPress 5.7.2: ~ 2500 Inodes
• Drupal 8: ~24200 Inodes  
• Prestashop: ~7900 Inodes
• Magento 2.3.7(no sample data): ~91303 Inodes

After a platform is installed, typically, you would like to add your static files such as images, audio, video, CSS, javascript, and so on. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, this is the most natural thing to do in order to get your website visually and functionally matching your goal. 

However, every platform has its own opinion about how for example, images will be stored. 

Take, for example, WordPress. The platform has the option to generate different image sizes based on your personal needs. Why might you ask? – Because on the different areas of your website, you might need images that are of specific dimensions. So instead of processing every image manually and uploading each variation of the same image separately – WordPress will do that for you. Great, isn’t it? Except it is not if you do not control it!

Every plugin or visual theme that you install on your WordPress website has the option to define its own image dimensions in the WordPress configuration. This means that when you upload one image on your next excellent post, WordPress will make, for example, 5 or even 10 copies of the same image with different dimensions on the file system of your web hosting account. 

As we already explained, for each file, there is a separate inode that is used on the file system. So basically, for the one image that you have uploaded, the inode consumption might become 10. Let’s scale that. Let’s assume that in a single blog post, you use, on average 3 images. If your WordPress generates, let’s say 10 copies of 1 image, this means 30 images for a single blog post which translates to 30 inodes. If you post 1 blog post per day, this makes 31 posts in a month times 30 inodes; this makes 930 inodes per month. Not to mention that some caching plugins generate additional cached copies of the images, which multiply this usage even further. 

So why the limit?

The concept of limiting the inodes per web hosting account on the Shared Hosting is relatively new compared to other limitations such as the limit of RAM, for example. The need for such restriction was immense when the shared hosting providers started switching from HDD storage units to SSD. 

Every file that you host on your web hosting account is stored on a physical storage unit, and each such unit has a physical limit of how many files it can keep in addition to the regular limit of how much data it can store. Of course, that limit depends on quite a lot of factors, such as the file system type, for example, but the important thing here is that there is an actual limit of the inodes per storage unit. 

Back in the day, the SSD space was relatively more expensive, and in fact, it still is. To cover the price difference, the hosting providers started using smaller disks with fewer inodes. It sounds logical – reduce the inode usage so you can get more speed. But the websites of the existing clients were already big and with tons of files. So the web hosting companies were forced to adopt the Inodes limit as a standard on the Shared Hosting plans. 

We are proud to say that HostArmada has one of the most considerable limits for inodes on our Shared Hosting plans. Also, our policies are pretty soft – we will never suspend your account if you reach your inodes limit. Instead, we will do everything we can to assist you in resolving the issue. 

Maintaining Inodes usage with HostArmada Inodes manager.

Typically to maintain the Inodes usage of your web hosting account, you have to mess with the SSH service for your Web Hosting account. SSH stands for Secure Socket Layer, and it is the native way of how a user can communicate with the Operating System of their Web Hosting Account. 

Sometimes, you might not feel comfortable working with SSH as it involves a slightly complex authentication process, and you need to have knowledge and experience with the service so you can proficiently maintain the inodes usage of your web hosting account. 

As always, there is an alternative to that! It is called Inodes Manager, and it is the new kid in the block! 

The HostArmada Inodes Manger is an inhouse built plugin for cPanel. It offers a graphical representation of the inodes usage for your web hosting account in such a way that you can quickly review and determine which websites or physical folders are consuming most of the inodes for your web hosting account. 

In addition to that, you will be able to clear the folders (delete the files) on the fly or if you would like to review the files in each folder on your own. 

In simple words – it is the tool you need when the situation gets critical!

How to use the HostArmada Inodes Manager

We built this plugin with UX in mind so our users can easily read and decide what they can remove from their web hosting accounts. 

As this is a cPanel plugin, you will find it in the cPanel service for your web hosting account. Once you access it, right at the top of the page, you will see a section called “HOSTARMADA FEATURES”. In it, you will find the Inodes Manager.

Let’s see how the plugin looks. Logically, the plugin is separated into 3 main sections. The first one contains a brief explanation similar to the one we provided in this blog post. 

The second section shows you the current inodes usage for your entire cPanel account. 

The third and final one shows you the inodes usage per website. 

Let’s begin with the Current Usage section. There you will see a graphical representation of the used inodes. The color of the model will vary depending on your current Inodes usage. 

In the “Usage per domain” section, you will find a sorted table with all of your websites and their inodes usage. At the top of the table will always be the website with the most inodes usage. To browse the inodes usage per website, please click on the small eye icon next to every website.

Next, you will see a table with the top 20 folders sorted again by inodes usage. 

It is always advised first to find information before deleting a file or a folder. Therefore when you see a folder at the top of the list, do not clear it immediately. Instead, what you should be doing is that you should review the contents of that folder and determine what exactly in that folder is causing the excessive inodes usage. 

To navigate within a folder, click on the folder’s name.

This will bring another table, but this time you will be presented with the top 20 inodes using folders within the folder you just accessed. This can be performed as many times as you would like to. Remember, you should always first find out which folder is causing the excessive inodes usage and clean that folder in particular instead of the parent one. 

To clear a folder from its files, please click on the broom icon next to the folder you would like to clear. 

This will bring a warning that will suggest you first download the folder over FTP before clearing it, as otherwise, you might lose critical data. Also, you will be presented with the option to upgrade your plan to the next tier in line in case you do not want to clear any of the files that you host. 

Once you finally confirm that the folder should be cleared, our plugin will remove all the files within the folder and will return a message for success. 

That’s it! Pretty easy. 

Let’s wrap it up! 

As you can see, having the right tools when you are in need is quite handy. Yes, the HostArmada Inodes Manager is merely a tool at your disposal, but it is the difference between night and day for someone that is not familiar with the SSH service since, at the moment, there is no other way to maintain the inodes of your web hosting account.

HostArmada will continuously work in our client’s favor and best interest providing new tools, improvements, and constant innovations for all our customers! If you have an idea for a service or a tool that can ease your Web Hosting experience, do not hesitate to reach out!

The post HostArmada Inodes Manger: Reducing the Inodes usage in cPanel appeared first on HostArmada Blog.

HostArmada continues to be a reliable source of news. After our latest blog post about cybersecurity, we continue the trend of reporting the major news that our clients and other interested parties should keep an eye out for. Please keep reading to find out more about this incident as it develops!

Here are the two referenced commits that we are talking about in this blog post:

What did the hackers do?

Everything points towards a compromise of the git.php.net server. Hackers pushed the backdoored code on the server under the guise of a very minor and inconspicuous edit. The malicious attackers pushed the two commits to the php-src repo for the popular scripting language. This backdoor would have allowed them to perform remote code execution (RCE), PHP maintainers revealed in an official statement. These unknown chaos agents would have used the backdoor for the remote takeover of any website that uses PHP. Maintainers are now reviewing the repositories for any signs of further compromise.

The security incident can be described as a supply-chain attack. Threat actors will target an open-source project, library, or another component that is relied upon by a large user base. By compromising one core target, it may be possible for malicious code to trickle down to a wide-reaching number of systems.

A recent example is the SolarWinds fiasco, discussed in our previous blog post, in which the vendor was breached, and hackers planted a malicious update for its Orion software. Once malicious users deployed this malware, tens of thousands of organizations were compromised, including Microsoft, FireEye, and Mimecast.

An investigation is still underway with no confirmed reports pointing to the identity of the attacker.

The malicious code includes reference to ‘Zerodium,’ a US company known for buying zero-day exploits. The company has so far denied involvement. In a tweet Zerodium CEO said:

Repercussions of the attack

While preliminary investigations are still underway, PHP maintainers have decided that maintaining their own git infrastructure is an unnecessary security risk at this time. In the interest of cybersecurity and to prevent other hackers from interfering, they will discontinue the git.php.net server. As of right now and indefinitely. Instead, the repositories on GitHub, which were previously only mirrors, will become canonical. This means that in the future, they should push changes directly to GitHub rather than to git.php.net.

Previously the write access to repositories handles through their home-grown karma system. You will now need to be part of the PHP organization on GitHub. If you are not part of the organization yet or don’t have access to a repository you should have access to, contact Nikita Popov at nikic@php.net with your php.net and GitHub account names, as well as the permissions you’re currently missing. Membership in the organization has to have 2FA turned on. This change also means that it is now possible to merge pull requests directly from the GitHub web interface.

Have the hackers left Github users unsafe?

Hackers may indeed have exploited the PHP repository itself. However, PHP maintainers found the backdoor left by the attacker(s) early. This was way before its malicious code could have reached the latest PHP release. This means that no released versions of PHP included this backdoor. This has prevented what could have been a major disaster for the global online community. According to a Web Technology Surveys study, PHP is thought to underpin almost 80% of all websites. This includes all WordPress sites, which are built on PHP.

The PHP team is currently reviewing the repositories to ensure that no other modifications were made by the attacker(s), but nothing has been found up to now. HostArmada will continue to monitor the situation further to provide you with updates as it develops further. We are quite eager to hear the results of the investigation!

In the wake of the Microsoft Exchange Github Scandal

This wasn’t the only cybersecurity alert that has happened for Github in the recent past. After security researcher Nguyen Jang posted a proof-of-concept exploit on GitHub that abuses a Microsoft Exchange vulnerability revealed earlier, GitHub, which is Microsoft-owned, removed the code to the alarm of security researchers worldwide.

The PoC code, something short of an actual functioning exploit, consisted of a 169-line Python file. It took advantage of CVE-2021-26855, a Microsoft Exchange Server flaw that allows an attacker to bypass authentication and act with administrative privileges. The bug, referred to as ProxyLogon, was one of four Microsoft Exchange zero-days that Microsoft patched in an out-of-band release on March 3, 2021. It’s part of the “Hafnium” attack that prompted a US government warning last week, which we’ve also discussed in our previous blog post.

Jang posted a write-up of his work, in Vietnamese, with a link to the code on GitHub. And a few hours later, the link to the code on GitHub no longer functioned.

It is safe to say that this bodes some concern over Microsoft’s ability to handle cybersecurity threats and its ability to hold wholesome interactions with cybersecurity researchers and experts. We’ll have to monitor how the giant techno-corp will react and adapt to this uncertain and dangerous climate. We wish them luck and success in this endeavor!

Closing Remarks

Expect us to be following the trends in cybersecurity in future blog posts as well. There is a lot to cover and currently happening across the world. The timing isn’t great either, given the rest of the issues the denizens of Earth are currently experiencing as a global society and the Covid-19 pandemic. The last thing we need is an unstable world wide web filled with threat actors looking to exploit big corporations and regular internet users in criminal and malicious ways. Unfortunately, that is what the current climate is showing us. Regardless this is an opportunity for companies such as HostArmada to raise awareness about these issues and be part of our global efforts to innovate and adapt to these new challenges.

Furthermore, we here at HostArmada, want to assure you that we have not been impacted by these cybersecurity threats as of now and are only reporting them to make sure our clients are well-informed about the state of the digital world.

If you have further questions, suggestions, or concerns, you can always reach us. HostArmada remains ready to be deployed 24/7!

The post Hackers exploit the PHP Git repository adding backdoor to PHP’s source code appeared first on HostArmada Blog.

What is Memcached?

To better understand Memcached, let’s go over what a “cache” is first. A cache is a temporary storage facility that stores data for faster access. Memory is finite, so systems cannot cache everything on a computer. Only frequently-accessed or important objects are therefore cached. Retrieving data from the database takes server resources and time. Often we need to retrieve the same data over and over again – sometimes in the same session! If it’s possible to fetch the data just once and repeatedly use it, this saves a significant amount of resources and time, meaning that the content will be delivered faster for fewer resources being consumed. Having the proper caching mechanisms in place is one of the most important things you can do to speed up the delivery of your website’s assets.

Memcached is an open-source, high-efficiency, distributed memory object caching system. Simple in nature but potent when used for dynamic web applications to facilitate quicker query execution, thus reducing database server load. Its simplistic architecture uses an in-memory key-value that caches small random data (objects or strings) that result from database calls, API calls, or webpage renderings.

On top of that, the developers designed it with ease of deployment in mind which makes it very accessible, even for non-tech savvy users. We have taken this accessibility to the next level by creating our Memcached Commander cPanel feature in order to deploy Memcached instances for users with literally one click!

How does Memcached help the user?

Now, the question you may be asking is: “How does this help me?!” The simple answer is – Speed! Speedy websites are excellent and highly sought by website owners, and you can never get enough of it. Memcached is a fantastic catalyst for speeding up the site, especially if it has a lot of dynamic content and regular database execution.

Since data is cached in the server’s RAM and not from disk, it’s faster. And since database calls arrive directly from the cache, it’s faster yet again. New database calls are made only when the requested data is not (or not yet!) cached. Remember that not all records are cacheable (frequently needed, necessary), while some are not (seldom accessed). The fact that Memcached filters these records prevent it from storing these rarely accessed files and completely utilizing the RAM chunk allocated to it, making it effective even with lower memory.

Why did we decide to use Memcached?

Here at HostArmada, we are all about innovation and performance! Giving our clients as many tools as possible to help them speed up their application is a mission we have set for ourselves. Memcached is just one of such implementations that can give users the slight edge they need over their competitors, and of course, we are always looking for server tweaks that can accomplish the same goals.

On top of that, our clients have highly requested this feature, which is something we cannot ignore!

Who can use Memcached on HostArmada?

Due to technical limitations and the infrastructural differences on our servers, we have chosen to implement the Memcached Commander on our most powerful solutions: Speed Reaper, Managed Cloud SSD, and Dedicated CPU Cloud

This decision gives our users the options to:

1) Select a solution that they need without cluttering their websites with additional services that bring no benefit.
2) This makes each of our plans unique and flexible so that users can choose when selecting their package.

How to make use of Memcached Commander?

HostArmada has made sure to think first of our client’s ease of use and accessibility. While we have covered what Memcached is and that it is now available on HostArmada, you are still most likely wondering where to find it and how to use it. It’s all rather simple! Here are the steps that you should take:

Step 1. You have to enter your cPanel through your client area or directly in the browser through the cPanel access link.

If you’d like to find out how to do that, you can check out our HostArmada cPanel access tutorial for more information regarding that.

Step 2. Then locate Memcached Commander under the “HostArmada Features” section of your cPanel. Alternatively, you can type down “Memcached commander” in the search field at the top to locate it.

Step 3. Click on the “Enable” button to turn on this feature and make use of your Memcached Commander.

Step 4. After you enable Memcached, this will turn on the process and allow it to connect to your website. You will be able to see the relevant information required to do that, including HOST and PORT, after it has been enabled.

Easy right? Well, if you have any more questions regarding the feature or would like to get more help in setting it up, don’t be afraid to reach back to us at any time as we remain 24/7 at your disposal!

Final Words

That covers all the nitty-gritty about our latest integration! We hope that this post was eye-opening for you regarding the benefits of Memcached and if you should use it on your website. Note that not all websites were made equal; thus, Memcached may not sky-rocket every site – it is a very niche technology that can make a difference if implemented correctly!

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