What you need to know:

WordPress 5.8 “Tatum” was released to the public on July 20, 2021. Its standout features include a new block-based widget editor, native support for WebP images, and the inclusion of a template editor. In addition, the update introduces the new theme.json file and drops support for Internet Explorer 11.

On July 20, 2021, the developers behind WordPress released WordPress v5.8 “Tatum”. Named after the legendary Jazz pianist Art Tatum, WordPress 5.8 introduces a plethora of new features, including some that are a part of a broader project known as Full Site Editing.

Tip:

Full Site Editing (FSE) is a long-term project at WordPress that aims to make it possible to edit every aspect of a WordPress website using the intuitive block editor known as Gutenberg.

In this article, we’ll highlight the most noteworthy changes that come with WordPress 5.8 “Tatum”. In addition, we’ll discuss whether this is a worthwhile upgrade.

Table of Contents

• What’s New in WordPress 5.8 “Tatum”?
  • The New Template Editor in WordPress 5.8 “Tatum”
  • Block Editor Improvements in WordPress 5.8 “Tatum”
  • WordPress 5.8 “Tatum” Officially Supports WebP
  • WordPress 5.8 “Tatum” Introduces Block-Based Widgets
  • A New theme.json File Is Added to WordPress 5.8 “Tatum”
  • WordPress 5.8 “Tatum” Drops Support for Internet Explorer 11
• Should I Update My WordPress Site to WordPress 5.8 Tatum?
• Conclusion

What’s New in WordPress 5.8 “Tatum”?

In addition to the usual bug fixes and stability improvements, WordPress 5.8 “Tatum” brings several noteworthy features such as:

• a template editor
• general block editor improvements
• WebP support
• the introduction of block-based widgets
• a new theme.json file
• ending support for IE11

In the next few sections, we’ll describe these noteworthy features in a bit more detail, so you’ll know what to expect once you upgrade your WordPress site.

Tip:

Are you itching to try the new WordPress 5.8 “Tatum” but you don’t have a website yet? In that case, you are welcome to sign up for our free hosting plan that is fully compatible with WordPress! You may also consider one of our professional WordPress hosting options for added functionality and performance.

The New Template Editor in WordPress 5.8 “Tatum”

The new Template Editor brings WordPress 5.8 “Tatum” one step closer to Full Site Editing. This new editor can be accessed by opting to edit your current template or create a new one while you are building your page or post.

Warning:

The template functionality will appear in the Gutenberg sidebar only if your theme supports post/page templates.

The look and feel of the Template Editor will be instantly familiar to most WordPress users as it is entirely based on the WordPress Block Editor interface. In fact, the most standout feature is that the Template Editor has access to a bunch of new blocks that are specific to Full Site Editing. Some of the more noteworthy additions include:

• Site Logo
• Site Title
• Query Loop
• Post Title
• Post Content
• Post Excerpt
• Post Featured Image
• Log In/Out

Block Editor Improvements in WordPress 5.8 “Tatum”

While the Block Editor didn’t see any groundbreaking features in WordPress 5.8 “Tatum”, it did gain a few quality-of-life improvements. Below, we will list the more noteworthy ones.

First on our list is the addition of 14 new blocks to Gutenberg. Most of these blocks are intended for Full Site Editing, such as Site Title, Site Logo, Site Tagline, and Page Lists.

One other block that deserves a special mention is the Query Loop block. This is an advanced block that allows you to cycle through your WordPress database and display information about posts that meet specific criteria.

Speaking of blocks, the WordPress Block Editor is now able to suggest block patterns that you can instantly add to your page or post. These suggestions will become better over time as the number of blocks and block patterns grows.

When you start combining multiple blocks and block patterns, it can get increasingly difficult to keep track of your page structure. That is why WordPress 5.8 “Tatum” ships with improved block navigation. Now, the ListView will give you a better sense of the blocks and block patterns that comprise your page or post. Also, clicking on an element in the list will bring it into focus in the main content area.

Lastly, we would be remiss if we did not mention the new Duotone Filters. These are special filters that you can place on your images. Once a filter is applied, the highlights and shadows of the image would be set to colors of your choosing.

WordPress 5.8 “Tatum” Officially Supports WebP

Another new feature that is a bigger deal than it may seem at first glance is the official support for WebP images. Developed by Google, WebP images offer better compression than JPEG and PNG while also preserving image quality.

Tip:

Not all image editing applications support WebP. If you find that your preferred image editor lacks WebP support, then you can use Google’s WebP conversion utility.

If you start using WebP images, you will see an average size reduction between 25% and 34%. This, in turn, will help your pages load faster which will help with user retention and SEO.

Tip:

Keep in mind that this new WebP support will not affect images that you have already uploaded. If you wish to convert your existing images to WebP, you will need to use a plugin or do so manually.

WordPress 5.8 “Tatum” Introduces Block-Based Widgets

Another noteworthy feature in WordPress 5.8 “Tatum” is the new widget system. Now, you can use the blocks that you know and love to customize the various widget areas on your site.

That said, the classic widgets are not going away any time soon. They can now be found in a new Legacy Widget block. In fact, you can add widgets side-by-side and they will work flawlessly regardless of whether they are modern, legacy, or a combination of both.

A New theme.json File Is Added to WordPress 5.8 “Tatum”

The addition of the new theme.json file in WordPress 5.8 “Tatum” will not get many regular WordPress users excited, however, it is a big deal for developers. Thanks to this new file, theme developers can now define styles and add presets without writing lengthy CSS code.

WordPress 5.8 “Tatum” Drops Support for Internet Explorer 11

The last noteworthy change that we will mention is that Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) is no longer supported in WordPress 5.8 “Tatum”. The lack of support means that if any new bugs are discovered, they will not be fixed in future versions of WordPress. If you are still using IE11, then we highly recommend that you upgrade to Microsoft Edge (the successor to Internet Explorer) or to one of the other modern web browsers that are available.

Should I Update My WordPress Site to WordPress 5.8 Tatum?

Yes. WordPress 5.8 “Tatum” represents a worthwhile update for all WordPress users. Aside from the many new user-facing features, this new version also packs important security and stability improvements. So, you should go ahead and update WordPress as soon as possible. In fact, it may have already updated on its own if you have automatic updates turned on.

Tip:

Do not forget to back up your WordPress site before performing the update! While no crashes are expected, it is always better to be safe than sorry!

Conclusion

While not a major breakthrough, WordPress 5.8 “Tatum” takes yet another step toward Full Site Editing thanks to the revamped Widgets section and the inclusion of the Template Editor. People who value performance and speed will also appreciate native WebP support. And developers can save themselves from having to write hundreds of lines of CSS code by leveraging the new theme.json file.

The post WordPress 5.8 Tatum Is Here. See What’s New! appeared first on AwardSpace.com.

This new version is there to make everything even simpler. Without using a code or hiring a pro you can do even more and you can do it in a few places like you couldn’t before. The controls that you use the most like changing font sizes are available in more places. Exactly how and where you need them. There are also layout changes like full-height images, and now they are even simpler to make.

The Editor is Now Even Easier to Use

As we mentioned earlier, you can find font size options in several places. You can find them in the List and Code blocks. It will be very easy for you to make changes to the font.

Reusable blocks: several enhancements make reusable blocks more stable and easier to use. And now they save automatically with the post when you click the Update button.

Inserter drag-and-drop: drag blocks and block patterns from the inserter right into your post.

You Don’t Need to Write Custom Code to Do More

Full-height alignment: have you ever wanted to make a block, like the Cover block, to fill the whole window? Now with the new update, you can.

Button’s block: You can choose between a vertical or a horizontal layout. You can also set the width of a button to a preset percentage.

Social Icons block:  You will be able to change the size of the icons.

A Simpler Color Palette

The new color palette contaminates the colors of WordPress in a range of 56 shades.

You can find the new palette in the default WordPress Dashboard color scheme, and use it when you’re building themes, plugins, or any other components.

From HTTP to HTTPS in a Second

With the new update, you can switch from HTTP to HTTPS with just one click. WordPress will automatically update the database URLs when you make the switch. No more guessing and worrying about how to do it.

New Robots API

The new Robots API lets you include the filter directives in the robot’s meta tag, and the API includes the max-image-preview: large directive by default. That means search engines can show bigger image previews, which can boost your traffic (unless the site is marked not public).

Lazy-load your iframes

Now it’s simple to let iframes lazy-load. By default, WordPress will add a loading=”lazy” attribute to iframe tags when both width and height are specified.

To Sum Up

The new update is now available. You can of course experience this and much more if you update WordPress to version 5.7.2. We will recommend you update your websites as soon as possible to the latest version to be easier for you to work in WordPress.

The post WordPress 5.7.2 is Now Available appeared first on AwardSpace.com.

Most bloggers usually add third-party plugins or ask developers to help. Now, this won’t be needed, due to the expected changes on March 31, 2020. The release date might vary due to how ready they are but WordPress is not known for missing deadlines.

WordPress first considered enabling lazy-loading for images in WordPress content in 2018. But at the time, the feature required a custom JavaScript-based approach, and this would have introduced many edges and failures.

Now, the long-awaited feature will enable the “loading” HTML attribute on all IMG elements. The usage of JavaScript will no longer be needed as well as those plugins for lazy-loading. Users can enjoy a standardized experience without content shifting.

Where Will the Lazy-Loading from WordPress be Available?

• Images in post content
• Images in post excerpts
• Images in comments
• Images in the text widget content
• Individual images rendered via wp_get_attachment_image()
• Avatar images rendered via get_avatar()

What Does Lazy-Loading Mean?

Whether the browser should wait before downloading an image or download it right away, is told by that lazy-loading HTML attribute. This means there is no need for JavaScript to run. The lazy loading attribute will be added automatically to the HTML code of all images and visual content will upload once users approach it as they scroll down the page.

The Eager attribute is quite the opposite. All images and videos are uploaded when the user accessed the page no matter if the content is on the browser’s radar or not. This slows down websites and generates a large number of simultaneous HTTP requests.

If there is no need for a loading attribute, it will be easy to remove it.

WordPress announced:

“With WordPress enabling native lazy-loading by default, it would significantly impact performance and user experience for millions of sites, without requiring any technical knowledge or even awareness of lazy-loading as a concept.”

All of this is significant to the progress WordPress is making not only for its platform but also for faster web improvement. Users, as well as us, are excited about the end of March when we will all hopefully try the feature.

The post Lazy-Loading to All Images by WordPress 5.4 in March appeared first on AwardSpace.com.

We all know how fast it changes, it enhances and offers new and advanced versions. There is nothing more for us than to be grateful that the developers behind the WP community offer us a way to easily do our work and create websites – fast, beautiful, and user-friendly.

With the latest changes, we are happy to inform you that the new WordPress version comes with many improvements that you will find in handy. And if you are interested in building websites and be familiar with everything up-to-date then you need to learn more about the changes in WordPress 5.3

Changes in WordPress

At its first announcements, we learned that we can expect things to be just polished but it appears to be far more than that. In a dance with improvements and Gutenberg adjustments, WordPress surprises us with so much!

Group Blocking

With the new version, you are now able to group blocks together, placing them inside one another. You can also save multiple blocks as a reusable ‘group block’, to save time on future designs. Furthermore, you can duplicate that group block, as well as ungroup it fast and easily.

This is a merge coming from Gutenberg and it improves the work with WordPress so much. You can drag and drop blocks in a group, you can customize background color, insert items, and a lot more. That’s one of the favorite boosts as users point out.

Managing Large Images and Their Styles

Another good news for all of you that wanted this matter fixed. There were many not satisfied with the problem users and WordPress heard them. Now the Block Editor can easily manage and display high-resolution images. Great, right!

For managing the threshold size there is a new filter – big_image_size_threshold, that allows the image to be stored in its original size so that it is still accessible when using wp_get_original_image_path.

Not only that but you can also rotate the full-sized uploaded images and also enhance the image block. You can easily change the styles of your images – now by also adding a circle mask to get your image in rounded borders.

New Theme! Twenty Twenty

Maybe we should have started with this one as many find it the best addition to WordPress 5.3.  The theme is actually built to fully support the block editor. It is a full-width theme featuring separate menus for mobile screens, a single-column layout, integrate columns overall, groups, and media with dynamic layouts.

There’s also a new typeface Inter that’s extraordinarily readable, especially with large headings. Inter comes with different fonts, weights, and styles. This feature works great for browser requests as it effectively improves your site’s performance.

And More!

The new version is also redesigned in its admin interface making it improved in so many ways. The buttons no longer have a shadow, they look flat and fancy. There is a stronger contrast on the form fields and buttons, on text zoom, there is much better content behavior, as well as changes in the meta boxes, form fields, notifications, and color pickers.

Overall, it is easy to work with, looks great, and is user-friendly.

For Conclusion a Few Tips

AwardSpace would like to advise you on some important matters before you dive into the deep waters of WordPress 5.3

First, make sure to back up your database, plugins, and themes. Of course, the new version comes improved and fallouts are not to be expected but you should always be prepared and a backup of your website will do its job.

Another matter of importance is the PHP version you are using. We provide the latest of course, but you should make sure you’ve also updated and are running your website at the latest.

A quick last tip. Since Black Friday is coming soon, if you are an e-commerce owner, make sure to contact us and share if you are expecting more traffic around that day. If you have promotions and think you’ll need us to back you up – just say the word. We, of course, are prepared for unusual traffic, but we’ll be even strengthening our servers.

The post WordPress 5.3 is Here! Improved and Advanced. appeared first on AwardSpace.com.

What happened?

cPanel which is the most used Linux-based software for managing hosting accounts that provide a graphical interface (GUI) a.k.a. Control Panel and automation tools designed to simplify the process of hosting a website, announced a price increase. As well as a significant change in its pricing policy. cPanel announced that they are going from a per-server to a per-account model of pricing.

Old Pricing Model

See the old pricing (per server) by Archieve.org.

New Pricing Model

See the new pricing (per account) model on the cPanel site.

Why is This so Daunting for the Web Hosting Businesses and the End-Users

The new pricing method is game-changing. End-users, smaller companies, web hosting resellers, and hosting companies have worked for decades on a per-server pricing model. Millions of servers are working at the current price per server license payment.

As the license was valid for an entire server where people and businesses could manage many accounts depending on how powerful the server is and pay per server price, now the price will be converted and they’ll be billed on a per-account basis. The latter could be easily equated to a per-site basis.

A Quick Breakdown of the Old vs. New Pricing Policy

Typically, on a server, you could host from 1 up to a 1000 accounts (in some cases 1500), and with the old cPanel pricing policy the cost was around:

• $15 (long-term clients or cPanel Solo account)
• $20 (new clients) per license.

That said, the license was a reasonable price for even one account, with single website management if you are an individual who wants to use the cPanel control panel software.

On the other side, if you are a hosting provider or a reseller you could put 1000 users on a single machine. Again, paying the same price of $15 to $20. By running this business operation, you could benefit from the economy of scale and make some profit.

In the new pricing per-account model, you have to bill every single user for creating a cPanel account literally to host a website.  It does have tiers (levels) though:

• 5 accounts – $20 / monthly
• 30 accounts – $30 / monthly
• 100 accounts – $45 / monthly
• 101 + account $0.20 / monthly for each additional account

Breakdown Comparison, if We Assume a Hosting Server Could Bare 1000 User Accounts

For a server with 1000 clients (most common case, see new pricing here)

For a server with 1000 clients (Licenses for Partners – if you run over 1780 accounts, see new partner pricing here)

It seems like the new pricing policy of cPanel overall turns into a 500% to 1000% increase in the price to use the cPanel software.

Who’s going to pay the bill is the question many people in the web community are anxiously asking?

Will the end-users be the ones that will pay this huge increase or the companies providing the hosting service? The answer is yet to come.

Why is cPanel Making This Move?

To some extent, this move has its logical explanation. At least some indications for changing the current cPanel business entity state was the fact the company was acquired last year on August 20^th, 2018 by Oakley Capital.

The acquisition was announced by cPanel and largely discussed by the web hosting community. Some users predicted this might happen as a consequence of the Oakley VC company’s investment in cPanel.

As financial analysts say, a venture capitalist company’s primary goal is to double, triple, or quadruple an investment typically in a short-term period, 1 – 2 years mostly.

As it always works, a more prominent company comes to buy a smaller one with a viable business case and many satisfied clients. At the moment of the announcement of the acquisition, the acquiring company claimed good intentions, and such we find in cPanel Oakley Investment FAQ:

It is a fact that a year later cPanel indeed Oakley Capital enforced higher prices, announced as a new pricing policy which cPanel claims to have “new revenue opportunity for our customers”, see the full text in cPanel Forum.

What a controversial policy of theirs in just a one-year time frame. The topic at the cPanel forum has 22+ pages with 20 posts on every page, all with negative backlash from the cPanel clients.

If you agree that the whole thing around cPanel is bad for the hosting community, here is another piece of the puzzle. Oakley Capital acquired the direct cPanel competitor Plesk just a year before cPanel on May 5^th, 2017. What a coincidence!

Well, some would say, that’s how capitalism works, bigger companies sometimes purchase smaller ones. If we have to be accurate here, a capitalist economy by its characteristics “distributes goods and services according to the laws of supply and demand” and also requires free competitive markets.

Is a market competitive if a single company holds the biggest two companies in a particular sector?

Who’s Affected Mostly

It still is hard to say but generally, the densest accounts per server companies will experience the highest pressure.

From all the information we have at present the smaller companies which sell cheap hosting and have lower margins will be put against the wall.

High-pricing companies will incorporate the $0.10 price per account into their monthly bill. Some of their end clients won’t even notice it. For instance, if you pay $15 per month for high-class shared WordPress hosting, an increase of $0.10 or $0.20 per month is bearable price raise.

If these are the general cases, smaller companies will be affected the most, as their power to cope with the new situation is limited. Small hosting companies providing budget hosting solutions will probably be the ones in the most disadvantageous position.

We believe that cPanel pricing policy change and increase, however, will have a deeper impact on web hosting businesses.

Even bigger companies will be affected.

How?

Well, the more prominent hosting companies have between 500k to 1 million accounts. If they have to pay 0.10 cents per account, this is a $50 – $100k additional expense per month or $600k to over 1 million dollars a year additional expenditure. It is a substantial new financial burden, which, obviously, won’t bring any new revenue.

That said we believe that cPanel’s new pricing policy will inevitably change the web hosting market.

Alternatives to cPanel

Maybe there are no good direct alternatives to cPanel. However, alternatives exist.

DirectAdmin

It seems a good solution, and prices start at $29/month for “Unlimited Domains” meaning unlimited accounts if we remind 1 cPanel account hosts just 1 domain. If you pay annually, the price is $16 a month ($200 / year, one-time payment). See all pricing options here.

VestaCP

It runs on AWS where you can easily deploy a server with it, that would be a good solution for hosting companies who rely on AWS. Another useful feature is the Softaculous being integrated into their panel. It is a feature most of cPanel users are using and will be happy to have if they come to the point to use another panel.

And now the good part about VestaCP – it is free! Yes, you read correctly, this control panel is free. It only charges for installation support like $60/h (1 hour), $180/ for 5 hours, etc. It also has a VestaCP demo you can play with it – thank you VestaCP!

Interworx

It is a solution that provides a more complex server administrator solution. NodeWorx is a system administrator interface for managing server-wide behavior and hosting (SiteWorx) accounts.

They also have SiteWorx, which is the website owner interface that you can use to manage your domains, email, and other hosting features.

Interworks is a paying solution and costs higher, $24.95 per month. Billed annually, the price goes under the psychological $20 per month.

The price of all plans includes “Upgrades and Updates” and “Unlimited InterWorx Related Technical Support”.

This server and hosting management software has incredibly good reviews by the hosting community on WebHostingTalk. Word-of-mouth recommendation is always the best marketing a product or service could have.

In-House Developed (Proprietary) Control Panels

Many companies in the web hosting business invest in proprietary solutions. Since its creation, our company AwardSpace uses an In-House developed Control Panel, which architecture is designed to accommodate the needs of free hosting and its vast demand – many accounts on a single server without compromising quality and speed. Another advantage of having a proprietary Control Panel solution is being self-dependent, simply said it prevents our company from being dependent on the calculations of someone from the outside.

Of course, having an In-house developed Control Panel comes with a large number of pros and cons, and to evaluate whether it is worth it to dive into such an endeavor, every company should take them into account.

While the development of such software takes a considerable upfront investment, the chances are doing so will pay off in the long run.

What is more, taking into account the news around cPanel, we believe that more and more company will simply develop their own control panels, instead of paying nearly one million dollars more. The latter, of course, will be true for the bigger players, that have both the teams and the money to create an in-house hosting control panel.

The smaller companies will probably look around for a better and cheaper solution, which, as it always does, will be created by a smart and opportunistic entrepreneur.

cPanel Alternatives Conclusion

The biggest problem switching to an alternative to cPanel is that users have gotten used to cPanel. It is intuitive, and people prefer it. Changing to another interface and functionality might lead to clients dropping the hosting company.

Another good reason to stay with cPanel is the fear of having the company you choose to go out of business or stop updating the software. It will pay off to carefully research the company developing the software and its track record, such as how long it has been on the market. Are their customers happy with its product and so on.

Of course, look around for the new solutions which will surely emerge. Sooner or later.

Is it worth it from cPanel’s Business Perspective?

cPanel and its new owners decided to raise prices, and we believe they have made a proper business analysis before doing that.

It seems like, they think this is a strategy that will bring overall value to the company, instead of destroying it. Their internal or external business strategists and advisors most probably went through many economic and business models to check and prove that this strategy is a working one.

To prove it right or wrong, we decided to check this business decision against a proven business analysis framework – Porter’s Five Forces Framework and see how it stands.

A significant price increase like the one in question leads us to the presumption that the company considers there are no good alternatives on the market. In other words, the competition could not offer a substitute, and the clients would accept the price going higher meaning the brand has bargaining power over customers and competitors.

The model Five Forces of Michael Porter provides a framework model where business leaders could go into detail and check a business idea or a business decision against the following Five Forces on the market:

1. Threat of New Entrants

A significant price increase of 500% like the one described above is an event that may cause new companies to try to enter the market. According to the framework, profitable industries attract new entrants due to the profit they could make.

Factors may vary, and we will mention here the ones that will help new companies enter this market.

There are no patents, governmental, or other fixed barriers. Many companies have access to end clients and could easily offer a new solution. An example might be AWS, a dominant player with its own server infrastructure and direct client base to offer a substitute (let’s say has a powerful supply chain).

2. Threat of Substitutes

There are alternatives on the market, free and paid ones (see “Alternatives to cPanel” paragraph above).

If you read the “Who’s affected mostly” paragraph above, the smaller businesses might have no other choice but to switch to an alternative, the same may happen for the bigger companies saving them half a million a year. Although switching is, generally, something that will not happen immediately, it is a viable solution in the long term.

The threat of substitutes is a real one and being in the shoes of cPanel for this little experiment, we would have seriously considered it as a threat.

3. Bargaining Power of Customers

The bargaining power of the customers is their ability to put a company under pressure, which also affects the customer’s sensitivity to price changes.

The question here is shall companies pay the price increase in order to satisfy their clients with the same Control Panel software, switch, or gradually change to another control panel provider. The answer is unclear simply because businesses today make unbelievable things to satisfy and retain clients.

4. Bargaining Power of Suppliers

No suppliers here as it comes to a software products. A new rivalry can achieve significant market penetration in under 6 months, especially in powerful companies that have changed entire industries in the past like Amazon.

5. Competitive Rivalry

Whether there will be a competitive rivalry in the hosting software control panel industry only depends on the attractiveness of the industry. It is an attractive industry as the whole world is going digital, servers, web-based systems, and websites demand will increase in the future.

That said the industry surely would attract more players to offer software for managing hosting servers and accounts. According to the 5 forces a company has to have a competitive advantage to resist on market saturation and a potential competitive rivalry.

The only single competitive advantage of cPanel is its brand recognition and its client’s loyalty, which, however, has been shaken vigorously by the pricing model change.

Conclusion

So, is it worth it from cPanel’s Perspective? It is definitely a bold move, causing too many negative feelings against cPanel.

The 5 Forces analysis above shows the good position of the company at present due to its popularity. However, it shows as well that there aren’t many barriers to protect cPanel from the competition or a market entry of a new rival.

Therefore, in the long-term, a stronger competition compared to the state before the announcement of the price jump is to be expected.

Who will be the winner and the loser of all this? It seems cPanel easily put a significant part of the hosting customers against the wall. It seems the battle will be won, but they might lose the war strategically.

Whether cPanel’s unexpected and almost immediately effective pricing policy change will turn out to be an example of a hasty and foolish business decision in the economic and marketing books is yet to be seen!

The post cPanel Massive Price Increase – Who is Most Affected, and is it Worth it From cPanel’s Business Perspective? appeared first on AwardSpace.com.

Now, two years later, we found out that what we created back then was exactly what you – our customers – needed.  Our WordPress Hosting service accompanied by the so needed WordPress Tutorials got thousands and thousands of views, and subsequently thousands of happy new and experienced webmasters.

What is more, we never changed who we are.  And we won’t.

The Free Web Hosting Service that lays in our core values is still here. And it always will be.

Although what we’ve created was warmly received by old and new users of our web hosting platform, we knew that something was not exactly how we wanted it to be.

The Space Lift

After a certain period, on the 25 of April 2019, AwardSpace released a new website design. But yes, this is not everything we got for you.

We wanted to get to know you better, and we wanted for you to get to know us better.  That is why we’ve created an extended version of the page About AwardSpace.

And even though, our core services, like the already mentioned Free Hosting and WordPress Hosting, as well as the Shared Hosting, VPS Cloud Hosting, and the Semi-Dedicated Hosting, are still present, you can quickly start a website with the most convenient one, we also crafted new services for those of you that need a specific hosting plan.

Here is a list of these services, which you can see in the footer of our website:

Free Hosting for Students

Students often need a temporary place for a project website. We’ve created the Free Hosting for Students service. By using it, each of the students will get a Premium Shared Hosting Account for free. For more information, check out the Web Hosting for Students page.

Free WordPress Hosting

Thousands of people got their WordPress hosting accounts since we started it. We figured that people might need a Free WordPress Hosting plan to get their ideas from their minds to the web. Now you can do it.

Joomla Hosting

Although, it is the most famous WordPress is not the only CMS.  People may prefer using Joomla!, thus, we’ve created the Joomla Hosting Package. It is perfectly optimized for Joomla, and you can start your Joomla website in minutes. This CMS is, of course, presented in our one-click installer.

Free Joomla Hosting

Once the Free WordPress hosting was created, and the Joomla service, as well, the next logical step was Free Joomla Hosting. If you prefer using Joomla, instead of any other CMS, and you want to give a flying start to your projects, you can do that with our free Joomla service.

Your Story

Enough said. That is the Space Lift. You can go through each page of the website, and get familiar with our new services, or see what you are already familiar with.

But what is most important is that the Space Lift was created for you. We sincerely hope for you to like what you see and to be able to navigate easily through the new design.

Not only that, we really hope that you’ll be able to find the right hosting service so that we will be presented with the honor to host your story.

The post Welcome to the Space Lift appeared first on AwardSpace.com.

“due to low usage and challenges involved in maintaining a successful product that meets consumers’ expectations”

Right now, all users have the chance to download and save their data from accounts and pages they created. However, this has to be done before April because on the 2^nd Google+ will begin deleting all of the content.

What Happened?

There are a lot of different speculations about what stands behind the decision Google+ made. As well as comments, articles, and news. Everyone is talking about it and it seems that everyone has an opinion. Browsing the Internet, you can come across some doubts about the essence of what Google+ was, why it shut down, and even unpleasant memes about its death.

The truth is, there is no drama about the recent events. The team behind it simply realized that it was time to focus on more important ideas, and projects, and more suitable for Google’s name decisions.

In 2011 when they decided to launch a new social media platform (that is now frequently declined to ever be one) they were up against the giant in the face of Facebook. Also, in the face of Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.

So, know from one side people are thinking that they could never grow to their success as people already had a platform to share their posts, videos, thoughts, or photos.

But on the other hand, users are saying that it was never about those shares and Google+ could bring a lot more to a single user, to a page, or to a business account. Especially with all the SEO benefits that it provided, according to many specialists in the field.

However, despite those differences, the most common and unfortunate problem is the fact that many users could never understand the idea of them using Google+ and had low rates of engagement (90 percent of user sessions lasted less than 5 seconds). Probably this is why Google+ had difficulty meeting customers’ expectations.

What Else Happened?

Except for the mismatching between users and Google’s platform (social, network, or whatever it is you want to call it), there are a lot of speculations about the bug they had.

Although Google+ never officially stated this as a reason, it is believed that their decision was driven by the data breach that happened on the platform. Personal and private information was leaked without consent by developers. This happened in March 2018, so many people are asking why did they stay quiet all the way until December.

The events of announcing the data breach and Google+ shutting down were right after one another. So, even if not confirmed publicly, it is considered that it would be easier if they put everything to an end.

While most of the comments online are negative or mocking, it is actually something great and brave to be done. Admitting an unsuccessful online journey is confirming that they have the ability to say “Okay, this is not for us, let’s do something greater”. And let’s admit it, Google can afford it.

Was It SEO Useful and What Should be Done Next?

Google stated that Google+ is not a ranking factor as well as the +1 button quickly turned into an obsession among SEO specialists. However, a lot of studies indicated quite the opposite. Adding +1 to content was itself a great endorsement and a sign that something is worth the read. It had great value and increased its reputation.

Not only that but the communities that were created on the platform brought a lot of benefits to the social media’s presence and this is always a push to the rankings. Google can deny it all they want, but no one believes that Google+ wasn’t helping the higher positions in the SERP. Everyone just wants to know how Google works!

A lot of companies took advantage of that and created great communities using Google+ and trusted fans. So, what should you do next? Well, as already pointed out in the beginning, thankfully, there is an opportunity to download all of your content and save it. You can use it and try to push it onto Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter.

Before you do all that, consider your traffic and visibility. Use SEMrush and Google Analytics to discover (if you haven’t done that already) all you can. If you come to the disclosure that your brand was doing great on Google+ then you 100% need to use that content.

Finally, don’t forget to update your website and remove the Google+ icons from the footer, or the buttons you had.

Sadly, it’s time to say Goodbye to our beloved Google+. Successful, helpful, great, or not, it was a part of the great Google world and it deserves our kind regards. We can now only wish their team good luck and patiently wait for their next amazing discovery that makes our lives easier.

The post Goodbye, Google+! All About the Shutdown and the Future. appeared first on AwardSpace.com.

I would highly recommend you two things.

First, don’t rush into updating.

Second, if you’ve already updated your WordPress to v. 5.0, and you are using some kind of a drag-and-drop page builder, use the Classic Editor.

Let me elaborate further.

WordPress 5.0 in Short

The new version of the most famous and used website management system in the world – WordPress 5.0 is more like WordPress 4.9.8. + Gutenberg that it is a new version. Still, there are a few improvements that deserve attention.

PHP 7.3 Compatibility

I know that I said that you shouldn’t rush into upgrading to WordPress 5.0, yet at one point or another, you’ll have to do it. The compatibility of the CMS with PHP 7.3 is crucial for the security of your website.

Yet, there is a chance that the latest update of WordPress has some issues, a.k.a. bugs. Thus, it will probably be best if you don’t update right away but wait for version 5.0.1 or something, which will take care of these potential bugs.

Translation

With the new version, everyone could translate text into JavaScript documents of files and plugins.  As of now, this functionality is available for PHP files.

The Gutenberg Editor

With the WordPress 5.0 version, the Gutenberg Editor is the default editor.

And there are a lot of reasons to use that editor. You’ll have the ability to reuse a block that you’ve used before on your website. Not only that but you’ll be able to import and export blocks from one site to another. Plus, there is a dark theme for the editor which I, personally, can appreciate.

Even more:

• Gutenberg features more than 20 blocks. Among them are text, paragraphs, HTML code, shortcodes, lists, titles, tables, buttons, columns, images, audio and video files, and more.
• There is an API for the blocks. Thus, there is an option for the creation of even more blocks.
• Shared blocks. When using shared blocks, you can edit all of them simultaneously from one place.
• Gutenberg is responsive. Thus it will work equally well on your desktop as it will on your phone.

We can still use the Classic Editor. As mentioned at the beginning of the article, it is now a plugin that you could install.

One more time, if you are using some kind of page builder, the Gutenberg Editor will interfere with it. Thus, if you want to continue using your page builder, you need to install the Classic Editor plugin.

The Classic Editor plugin will be officially supported until 2021.

Hopefully, this problem will be resolved with the following version of WordPress.

NB! By now, you can use the page builder in the front-end of your website. That is, of course, true only about those page builders that have a front-end version.

 

WordPress 5.0 and ClassicPress

Following the controversy around the Gutenberg editor, the separation of users has emerged. Thus, a new project was created. The ClassicPress is advertised as Powerful. Versatile. Predictable.

And that Predictability is what inspired these people to create the new version of the widely loved CMS. They just want to keep WordPress as it was.

Even though there are a lot of things that are great about the Gutenberg editor, maybe there is a reason not to like the way it was forced on the users.

ClassicPress is claiming that their version of WordPress is not only missing the Gutenberg editor but is also ‘modified and enhanced.

How to Update WordPress

If, after all, you decide that you want to try WordPress 5.0, here is how to update your CMS to the latest version.

And because by default WordPress won’t update automatically, there is a list of steps that you need to take, in order to achieve that.

1. Backup Your Website

Before you start the process of updating your CMS to v 5.0 Bebo, please make a backup, in case something goes wrong. Especially if you’ve made other changes to your website beforehand.

We’ve covered How to backup a website and how to restore WordPress from a backup.

Please don’t leave your website to chance, and bear in mind that although automated, the process of updating your WordPress is not simple at all.

2. Update Your WordPress

Once you’ve backed up your website, and you are ready to update, enter the Dashboard of your WordPress website, you’ll be greeted by the announcement that WordPress 5.0 is available. Right there, there is a link that says, Please Update Now.

Here is what you need to look for:

Once, you’ve clicked the button, your WordPress will be updated. And you’ll be greeted by Bebo… And Gutenberg.

What you need to know that you’ve updated to WordPress 5.0 is to check whether your theme and plugins are working properly.

Bear in mind that, as already mentioned the Gutenberg editor which is now the default, will interfere with every theme, or plugin that needs the Classic Editor to work properly. Namely, every visual builder has a backend version. Like the Divi builder.

Final Thoughts

WordPress was and still is a great, and versatile CMS. With the newest version, everyone is able to taste the pleasant utility of the block editor. And that is, honestly, one more reason to use WordPress. The new version – 5.0, is making it even easier to create a website.

Related: How to Create Your Own Website For Free in 2019

The block editor will make the process of content creation more comfortable for everyone that has no budget or willingness to use any of the paid solutions. The latter, we have to say, are way more sufficient, but time will surely change that.

There probably will come a time when WordPress will be so versatile out of the box that themes, plugins, and other add-ons might be unnecessary. Of course, this is just a hypothesis.

Until that time comes(if ever), we can enjoy the gradual improvements of WordPress.

The post WordPress 5.0 is here. Say “Hello!” to Bebo and the Gutenberg Editor appeared first on AwardSpace.com.

As of today, by using Google and all of its analogs, we are diving into a spanless ocean of sites. Still, we are rarely able to hear a story that was never told before.

Finding out how Google works, will surely explain to anyone who is wondering why when sailing on the web, we hear the same story again and again.

Spoiler alert: It’s mostly about clicks. Clicks and ad revenue.

We continue to tell that story as if we are the only ones to do so. But while it is perfectly reasonable to take photos of the moments we cherish, whether these moments are trivial, there is something profoundly wrong, when people all around the world turn their backs on their own stories. A story that is buried under the heavy soil of expediency. If you are passionate about marketing, for example, there is nothing wrong to share your perception of the topic, but please do share your viewpoint. Make it personal. Make it real.

If your story is genuine enough, money will follow.

How to Tell a Story

We are all guilty of that crime. Whatever we are about to do, we need to feel prepared.

‘I am not going to write that novel until I am ready.’ – is a sentence that deprived and continues to deprive the world of an immense amount of great stories. Like yours.

Maybe we’ve asked the wrong question all along.

Maybe it doesn’t matter whether you know how to tell a story.

Maybe it’s all about what story you are telling, not about how you say it.

Are you staying true to yourself when doing what you are doing? Or are you letting your soul fall without wings?

Is your web presence prompted by the promises of easy money? Or do you have a personal website? If the latter is true, are the stories that you share genuine and sincere?

On the other hand, if you don’t have one, it is probably time to create a personal website.

Forget the how, focus on what.

Related: How to Start Freelance Writing in 2019

The Uniqueness of Value, Not Uniqueness of Content

Since the webmasters found out that the search engines are ranking the pages in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) by the number that a specific keyword was mentioned, they started stuffing all the keywords in the content.

That was a time, when people were creating content, not to tell a story, not to touch a targeted audience, but to get the approval of His Excellency the Search Engine.

As the time passed by, someone somewhere figured out that people won’t stay on the page if it says the same thing over and over again, and he pigmented the stuffed keywords the same color as the background. Thus, the average user was seeing only a specific part of the content on the page. Still, the search engines, as they are robots that are unable to see visual elements, were tricked to think that the page contains the keyword a lot more times than it did to the human visitor. Thus, the text seemed a lot more relevant to the user’s initial query.

The actions described above are part of the so-called Black Hat SEO, and the most you can achieve by implementing this tactic in 2018 is to get penalized by Google. The search engine has become a lot brighter than it was. As of today, Google is checking the code that is building a page and can determine whether there is hidden text.

One more thing. The number of keywords is not that important for SEO anymore. Of course, it should be clear what you are trying to say, but there are factors way more important than keywords.

Factors, like the uniqueness of value.

Self-proclaimed ‘SEO experts’, will probably never stop to echo the same advice again and again.

• You need to create unique content.
• You need to acquire backlinks.
• You need to mention your keywords as much as possible in your content.

And yes, these are true. But do you ever stop to ask yourself, if it is possible to create unique content, and acquire backlinks if you are writing someone else’s story?

Sincerity is what gets you backlinks. And again sincerity is what creates unique content. Your content will be exclusive if it has a value that no one has given to the Internet before.

And when you give the world a unique value, keyword stuffing won’t be necessary because we will purposefully try to find your website. We’ll want to read your story.

If you give a unique value to the world, you’ll definitely have an audience capable and ready to smile and cry along with you.

A Thousand Ways to Tell Your Story, One Way to Share it

We are a lot more similar to each other than we’d like to think. We all like to laugh, share, speak, and listen to the ones we love. We like being in the spotlight, as long as we have something to say. As long, as we are not too proud to say what we truly think. Allowing your pride to stop you from sharing that story of yours is the biggest crime you can commit to yourself.

I don’t believe that there are people who have no talents at all.  Every one of us has an ability that has not been given to everyone else.

Humankind has found a thousand ways to tell stories. Each and every one of us tells a story.

We do so by writing, and painting, but also by crafting furniture out of wood, singing, and acting. There is art in the works of a plumber, as much as there is in the works of the creative director.

It is just a different kind of art.

The lawyers and the judges, we tend to think, don’t have a creative side, but even if that is so, that doesn’t mean these people are not gifted. They have abilities that are not present in every one of us. Legal protection is an art, in a way. It is just too hard for us, ordinary people, to understand it. Lawyers and judges also have stories to tell.

Arguably some of the most creative people are entrepreneurs. They all trying to tell a tale by inventing, and striving to change the world. One customer at a time.

Whatever your way of telling a story is, whatever your gift is, you should be online. You should share with us your truths. Share with us what abilities you’ve been gifted.

There is only one way to do that.

Create a personal website.

Whether you are in the first, the second, or the third act of your story, you should share it.

Today.

When it comes to creating a website, no matter how far you’ve reached in your story, hosting is needed.

Related: How to Choose Web Hosting

If you are just starting to unfold your gifts even to yourself, our free web hosting service is more than appropriate.

It is free, and you can keep the account forever.

Related:  HostingAdvice.com: “AwardSpace Helps Startups Achieve Online Dreams”

So, What is Your Story?

It takes time to truly understand that everyone around us has a story to tell. Still, I am convinced that for most of us it takes even more time to understand and to believe that we too have a story that needs to be told. A story that has been hidden for far too long. Hidden even from you. Hidden by expediency, by fear, by objections.

What if I tell you that everyone who tells a story is frightened by those same fears, asking himself the same questions?

• What if no one reads my story?
• What if my story is unable to touch anyone?
• Am I ready to tell that story?
• What if my story is too soft and people laugh at me?

Related: “What Should My Blog Be About?” 5 Ways To Decide!

Related: “Nobody Reads My Blog.” 5 Working Strategies to Change This.

Related: 7 Blogging Tools That Will Change the Way You Blog

Even though each of these questions requires to be asked and to receive its answer, all of them, and all the others that I didn’t mention shouldn’t be able to stop you from sharing that story of yours.

Whether you are a photographer, a writer, an amateur philosopher, or a starting business, a painter, or you feel the need to share your day-to-day life, we need your story.

Personal.

Genuine.

Tormented or Joyful.

Corny or Somber.

Written or Photographed.

Profound or Shallow.

Painted or Illustrated.

Maybe it is time for you to tell your story.

In fact, you are probably going late already.

Don’t hesitate.

Your story matters.

The post What’s Your Story? appeared first on AwardSpace.com.

Again, the main focus of the article is what our company is famous for, and what we pioneered. Namely, free web hosting services.

While last year HostingAdvice talked with our CFO – Raitschin Raitschew, on the 2nd of this November, HostingAdvice spoke with the COO of Zettahost and AttractSoft (AwardSpace’s parent companies).

Nestor and HostingAdvice covered a lot of topics. We’ll talk about just a few of them, so we won’t ruin your experience of reading the full article.

Keeping Up With the Industry

It’s no secret to anyone that the tech industry is expanding fast. This brings changes if not every day, at least often enough for everyone involved to be troubled to keep up with these changes. We are happy to be able to “remain competitive over the years by embracing industry changes”.

In their piece, HostingAdvice mentioned that due to the Google Chrome “Not Secure” warning, every webmaster that strives for his users to engage with the created content must get an SSL Certificate. This statement is especially true for online businesses, like e-commerce shops, or websites that support account logins, and/or transmit any other type of private data.

Read: How to Create an E-commerce Website Using WordPress

Nestor has shared with the media how important it is for AwardSpace to keep up with the industry, and not to let its users down. So important that we’ve put other projects on hold so that we can prioritize encryption of our users’ websites.

Customer-Oriented Services

We can easily say that Customer Support Services are way more important than any other part of your business.

Last night, I had to call my mobile operator’s support to take care of a problem that I experienced. It was one of the most awkward and unpleasant conversations I ever had. Although the experience wasn’t intense enough to convince me to change the operator, it was something that I’ll remember and share with friends.

The good news for the mobile operators is that, as far as I am concerned, the average user needs customer support less often than the average web hosting user.

If I needed customer support, say once a week, or even once a month, and every time the conversation was leaving me with the emotions I had last night, it wouldn’t be long before I changed operators. And that is that.

Meanwhile, in AwardSpace we are proud of our customer support. As Nestor pointed out for HostingAdvice: “In today’s hosting world, great support makes the difference”.

And that is one of the main reasons we guarantee a response time of around three to five minutes.

Fairly Priced Upgrade Options

Yes, AwardSpace is the free hosting pioneer. And yes, our free web hosting services, are free forever. Still, we have certain restrictions on the amount of traffic, and the resources that a free hosting account can have. Yes, you can have a fully functioning website on our free hosting. Still, there comes a moment, when your site is way too big for free hosting. And you know it. That is the moment when you’ll have to upgrade.

You can upgrade your account either when your website becomes too big, and you need more resources, or when you find out that you can have a free domain for life.

Whatever your reasons to upgrade are, when the time comes, and you are about to do it, you’ll find out how pain-free the process is.

I decided to end this article with a quote from HostingAdvice’s piece.

“It’s in that [same] spirit of efficiency that AwardSpace has created freemium pricing that actually works in the user’s favor while serving as a sustainable business model for the company.”

I couldn’t say it better.

Read the full article.

The post HostingAdvice.com: “AwardSpace Helps Startups Achieve Online Dreams” appeared first on AwardSpace.com.