WordPress Behind the Scenes:

Maintaining Your Site for Better Performance, SEO, and Usability

Ryan Guina – CashMoneyLife.com – TheMilitaryWallet.com

Audience: Beginner to Advanced BloggersTech Skills Required: Beginner to Intermediate

Your Blog is Broken

• Cluttered & inefficient database• Too many plugins• Broken links• And you are linking to…• PORN!!!• (and other bad neighborhoods)

Clean Up WordPress to Improve

• User Experience• Efficiency• Search Engine Optimization

How to Optimize Your WP Database

• Eliminate excess plugins• Clean database• Optimize/repair database

• Required skills:– Know how to backup/restore database

Backup and Upload WP Database

• Backups are essential any time you change DB• Know how to upload/install DB backup• Schedule automatic backups• Perform backup w/ new changes

Eliminate Excess Plugins

• Plugins increase overhead• Plugins decrease efficiency• Create new tables in database

Drop Unnecessary DB Tables

• Many plugins create tables when activated• Don’t always delete tables when removed• These cause DB bloat

Plugins Garbage Collector

• Plugins Garbage Collector plugin identifies:– Core WP tables– Tables associated w/ active plugins– Tables from inactive/deleted plugins

Dropping WP Database Tables

• Identify which tables to drop• Don’t recognize table name? Google it• STOP! Backup database• Delete non-essential tables

Post Revisions = Database Killer

• Great feature• Limit # of revisions or turn off feature• Stop! Backup database• Delete old revisions– Delete-Revision plugin– MySQL magic

Optimize & Repair Database

• Just like defragging hard drive on Windows• Reduces overhead, improves efficiency• STOP! Backup DB• WP-DBManager plugin– Optimize– Repair

Broken Links & Bad Neighborhoods

• Broken link doesn’t resolve – Ex: 404 error• Bad neighborhoods:– Porn, gambling, pharmaceuticals, malware, parked

domains, get rich quick, MFA, etc.• Redirect links– Expired domains redirected to bad neighborhoods

for traffic/SEO

Broken Links & Redirects

• Broken links – Bad user experience– Bad for sales and conversions– Bad for SEO

• Redirects and links to Bad Sectors– Bad for user experience, reputation, SEO– A link from your site is a vote!

Finding Broken Links & Redirects

• Broken Link Checker – WP plugin– Run in background, receive updates– Run periodically– Can be resource hog (do initial run at night)

• Xenu Link Sleuth – desktop for Windows – (can run on other OS with emulators)

Removing Broken Links & Redirects

• Broken links– Remove or repair broken links

• Redirects– Manual process– Click and follow, then decide on action– Time consuming, but worth it

Clean DB Essential for Blog Health

• The cleaner your database, the more efficiently it performs

• Better for site speed/performance• Better for user experience• Better for SEO

Clean Up Your Links

• Removing broken links & bad redirects– Improves User Experience– Increases Conversions– Improves On-site SEO

Resources

• WP-DBManager: Backup, Optimize/Repair DB– http://lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming/php/

• Plugins Garbage Collector:– http://www.shinephp.com/plugins-garbage-collector-wordpress-

plugin/

• Broken Link Checker:– http://w-shadow.com/blog/2007/08/05/broken-link-checker-for-

wordpress/

• Xenu link sleuth:– http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html

Questions?