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Google Maps API Setup Guide for WordPress

Google Maps requires an API key to work on your website. This guide shows you how to set up your own key so you control costs and avoid relying on a developer’s shared account. Quick Setup (For Power Users) Time Required: 15–30 minutesCost: Free

Responsive Video Embeds in WordPress

For many years we've used Fitvids.js to keep YouTube and Vimeo video embeds responsive for all screens. It's still a good option in that it functions as advertised, but if you're keeping up with the latest in WordPress and Gutenberg, there's an

How to Set Up WooCommerce USPS Shipping Rates

Setting up shipping in WooCommerce can be quite the task, as there are multiple steps to take and numerous settings and shipping options to consider. We’ll cover one of these aspects below: setting up WooCommerce USPS shipping rates and settings. If you

Let’s Encrypt to offer wildcard SSL’s

Great news folks!! Starting in January 2018 Let's Encrypt will start issuing wildcard SSL certificates. They cite that wildcards have been a common feature request and are hoping that it makes managing and deploying HTTPS that much easier going forward. Wildcard SSL?

The human security factor: Passwords

Hardening WordPress—the steps taken to tighten up security to prevent a malicious intrusion into your website—can seem daunting to the typical user. Luckily, one of the simplest things you can do to harden WordPress is also one of the most effective: use

WooCommerce Stripe plugin now requires PHP 5.6

We use Stripe as our payment processor here at Cinch. We love the streamlined approach to almost everything Stripe does - from the user checkout experience to our own account management. It's a solution we often suggest to our clients for the

Premium Plugin Management for WordPress Sites

As the use and functionality of WordPress grows and improves, so do the thousands upon thousands of plugins available on the platform. With so many options, it can be overwhelming choosing the right WordPress plugins for your site.  And while there are

Cloud Backups

Website backups are vital to your site’s long-term health. Unfortunately, the free WordPress backups provided by hosting companies typically aren’t enough to reliably restore your site to its full glory after a crash… or in some cases, even restore it at all.

Hardening WordPress

WordPress is a hugely popular content management platform. From its humble blogging beginnings, WordPress has developed into an online powerhouse used by organizations and businesses from Fortune 500 firms to shoe-string start-ups. In fact, W3 Techs reports that a whopping 58.6% of

WooCommerce Subscriptions Renewal Notification Didn’t Send? Here’s What Was Missing

A customer reached out with a question on WooCommerce Subscriptions renewal notifications: We received a complaint from a member who said he was not notified that his membership was about to renew. When I look in the logs, it shows an email

Upgrade Your WordPress Site to the New Google Analytics 4: Start Collecting Data Now

What is the new Google Analytics 4? In 2019, Google introduced their plan to evolve measurement standards with Google Analytics 4, which prioritizes user privacy and introduces new machine learning technology to measure user interactions across app and website platforms (no longer

Gutenberg 4.5 Changelog

In order to be able to use srcset and sizes on the front end, wp-image-### CSS class has been added to the media and text block.Add minimal multi-selection block panel to replace “Coming Soon” message. It shows word and block count for the selection.Exclude reusable blocks from the global block count in Document

Force WordPress Add Media button to insert protocol relative links

Update: Protocol Relative links are considered an anti-pattern according to Paul Irish. Basically, if an asset is available over https:// then it should be served as such for security reasons. Get the updated code here. Cinchws.com is set up to be 'HTTPS

The best way to back up an E-Commerce website

Running an e-commerce website has unique and exciting challenges that non e-comm sites needn't worry about. One of those challenges is how best to manage backups. Every site needs a backup plan, what's so special about e-commerce? Most website managers don't add

Why We Don't Do One-Time Fixes

We write quite a bit on our blog about WordPress and WooCommerce, and how we've solved some of the issues we've come across. This brings a lot of site traffic – folks looking for help on the same issues we've come across.

WooCommerce 6.8.0 Adding New Default Shipping Zone and Method

Update: WooCommerce 6.8.1 fixes this issue WooCommerce 6.8.0 was released last week and appears to have added a potential new bug related to shipping physical products. Smart Shipping for new sites A new featured called Smart Shipping that is supposed to set

How Our Real-Time Backups Saved The Day

We offer real-time backups for our Performance, WooCommerce, and Pro-Bundle customers. A new customer recently signed up for our WooCommerce Support plan. One of the first things we do when setting up any site is to connect our backup systems and take

Secure your site or alienate your visitors

How to Install and Enable a WooCommerce Extension from WooCommerce.com

Installing a plugin on your WordPress website is pretty straight forward, and can be done in a few different ways. WooCommerce extensions from WooCommerce.com are installed differently and are managed within the WooCommerce plugin itself. WooCommerce extension? Aren't they just plugins? WooCommerce

WordPress 4.8.2 Security Release

WordPress 4.8.2 was released today and is considered a security release. Site owners are strongly encouraged to update immediately. Previous versions of WordPress (4.8.1 and earlier) are affected by the following security issues: $wpdb->prepare() can create unexpected and unsafe queries leading to potential