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PlayGround background, Siren Affiliates, WordCamp Europe + HBD WordPress!

Hi Reader 👋🏻,

WordPress 6.5.4 RC1 dropped in the last 24 hours and it reverts this weird bulk activation hack we've currently got going. It introduces a new filter to restore auto-redirect after plugin activation now. This is good. This is listening to feedback.

Let's see what else happened this past week, shall we?

🗞️ Within WordPress News

Here’s what I saw happening this past week:

• The WordPress Plugin repo has raised the display cap for active installations from 5M to 10M. There are currently now 7 plugins that have more than 5M installations. Scroll down to Popular Plugins to see the list.

I'm a little sad that the Classic Editor is up there as well, tho. Feels like a good 5 years should've been enough for everyone to embrace this new paradigm, no. What do you think Reader?

• The above mentioned fact sparked an interesting conversation on how we actually track the number of WordPress sites out there. And it's complicated.
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  Like really complicated, because what are we even measuring? And how?

• WordPress turned 21 this week. Crazy. I have kids older, but I also have one younger than that. Wild. For funsies I went back to the very first version of WordPress and installed that. Curious what that looks like? Well, I recorded a little video about it. We've come a long way!

Matt Mullenweg blogged about it and in it he shares 11 opinions worth your attention. Number 4 is my favorite, I think.

• Sometimes it's the little things that make you happy, right? Something like a keyboard shortcut that allows you to create a group from the selected blocks.

• Brian Gardner shared 5 videos that highlight the powerful features we have with our Block Editor now over on the WP Engine blog.

• My friend Nathan Wrigley (don't tell him I said that because I don't want his ego to inflate even more 😉 did a great podcast interview with Adam Zielinksi, creator of WordPress Playground. The tool that allows us to preview plugins from the repo in context and the tool that WordPress.com's Studio is built upon.

BTW, Studio is now also available on Windows. You know, if you're into that OS.

• Fränk Klein did a video on his thoughts about what the best Full-Site Editing Starter Theme are. I like his selection as that closely matches my own list.

• Matt, yes, the Medeiros kind, published his thoughts on the WordPress Media Corps. I still haven't formed an official opinion yet, but what Matt shared resonates with me to a degree. I've promised Jamie Marsland my thoughts on this, so at some point I scribble them down, but probably not before WordCamp Europe.

• Speaking of which, I'm excited to go to Torino and have fun at WordCamp Europe in less than two weeks. I'm MC'ing as well, so that'll be fun. Come say Hi when you see me, okay? If you haven't decided yet, just have a look at the schedule and make your way over there!

🚀 Performance & Security

• NitroPack, the cloud based performance optimization tool listed below, and friends of Within WordPress are doing something cool during WordCamp Europe. Their CTO Ivailo Hristov together with Google's Adam Silverstein will do a hands-on tips and tricks on how to improve your website's performance. You can register here to have them look at your site.
• WordPress 6.6 will see many improvements for WordPress multisite as mentioned in my previous newsletter, but there will also be a new powerful new function called wp_prime_network_option_caches. This function allows you to prime caches for multiple network options with a single call. Learn more about it here. Hat tip, Jonny Harris!

🔆 Within WordPress Highlight

We're getting closer and closer to opening up Scanfully. If you haven't heard, I'm building Scanfully together with my co-founder Barry Kooij. Scanfully is a WordPress Site Health and Performance measuring tool.

We monitor your site’s health so you can focus on other things. Receive notifications when something important happens on your site and gain insight with our WordPress Timeline.

💡 Interesting Finds

• Google search is one of the most secretive, closely-guarded black boxes in the world. Well, maybe not anymore. Rand Fishkin shared a leaked Google Search document that highlights the factors that go into ranking on Google. Very long and interesting read for anyone who works with SEO.

🎁 Bonus

I've been part of affiliate programs for as long as I can remember, but they're generally lacking and not fun. It's a market that ready for innovation, IMO. Has been for years. Alex Standiford thought so too. Even more passionately, because he's been working on a solution that allows for waaay more flexible affiliate tracking than anything I've ever seen.

Tune into our podcast and learn what he's up to with his Siren Affiliates🎙️.

That’s it for this week’s edition of Within WordPress. Thanks for reading!

Best,
Remkus

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Tjongervallei 10, Oudehorne, Fryslân 8413 CS
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