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A content distribution network (CDN) can reduce the amount of work your WordPress server has to do and improve the performance of your site for visitors across the world.

Most of the resources on your WordPress hosting account’s server are used to respond to requests and generate dynamic content. But most of your server’s bandwidth is consumed by the delivery of static resources: resources that don’t change between users. Static resources include images, videos, JavaScript files, and CSS files, among others. Static resources are the biggest bandwidth hog for most sites; a single high-definition image can consume as much bandwidth as hundreds of pages of text, dynamically generated or otherwise.

Fortunately, static assets are the perfect candidate for caching. Once static assets are loaded by the browsers of your WordPress site’s visitors, they’re saved so that they don’t have to be loaded again the next time they’re included in a page. That makes the page faster the next time it loads, but it does nothing for the first load or for any page load after the static files have changed.

A content distribution network is a type of cache that sits somewhere between the browser’s cache and the on-server caches provided by plugins like WP Rocket or W3 Total Cache. A content distribution network is composed of servers in data centers around the world. The servers comprising a CDN are called edge nodes because they’re at the “edge” of the network.

When your WordPress site is hooked up to a CDN, its static assets are uploaded to the edge nodes. Most content distribution networks have edge nodes located near major population centers. The Hostdedi CDN has edge nodes right across the US, Europe, and Asia. When a user requests a page from your site, the static content is loaded from the nearest edge node, not from your WordPress site’s server.

Let’s say your WordPress site is based in our Southfield, Michigan, data center. A visitor from Sydney, Australia, requests a page from your site. Without the CDN, the images and scripts would have to take a 9000 mile trip from Southfield to Sydney. In a perfect world, data could make that trip in less than a tenth of a second, but we don’t live in a perfect world.

The data may pass through lots of routers, switches, and copper cables before it arrives at its destination. And it’s a two way trip: the request has to travel from Sydney to your server and the response from your server to Sydney. In many cases, the round trip time will be multiple seconds, which doesn’t lead to a positive web experience.

But if the static assets don’t have to come from your WordPress server in Southfield, the trip could be much shorter and faster. A CDN caches the static assets in a data center close to the user in Australia, perhaps just down the road in Sydney. The request is diverted to the nearest edge node, and the data delivered in fractions of a second.

A content distribution is essential if you want to offer international users and even users on the other side of the US a great experience on your WordPress site.

Many of Hostdedi’ WordPress hosting plans include a generous data allocation on our global content distribution network.

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WooCommerce, WordPress

When logging in to a WordPress site, users supply a username and password that WordPress associates with their account. If an attacker can guess the right username and password, they can authenticate in the same way. The process of guessing is called a brute force attack: the attacker tries different combinations of usernames and passwords until they discover one that works.

Brute force attacks are effective when WordPress users choose usernames and passwords that are easy to guess. Criminals use automated botnets — which are usually made up of compromised WordPress sites — to make thousands of login attempts with different credentials.

Towards the end of December, WordFence wrote about the largest brute force campaign they had ever seen. An attacker was attempting to brute force access to thousands of WordPress sites. Once they had access to the site, the attacker installed malware which had two tasks: to compromise more WordPress sites and to run the crypto mining software.

Cryptomining software hijacks the resources of a server to mine cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Litecoin are generated by carrying out the computationally intensive math. Cryptomalware uses the resources of compromised machines to do the work of generating coins. In this case, Monero, a cryptocurrency that can be mined with CPUs rather than GPUs, is being generated. According to WordFence, the campaign has created well over $100,000 for the attacker.

Victims of the campaign have their sites compromised and their server resources used to generate coins rather than serving the site. Because the malware also carries out attacks on other sites, there’s a strong chance of infected sites being blacklisted by security companies and browser developers.

Protecting WordPress sites against brute force attacks is straightforward. It’s only possible to guess usernames and passwords if they are simple and if the WordPress site lets an attacker make lots of login attempts.

Use Complex Passwords

The obvious solution is to insist on complex passwords that are difficult to guess. A long, random password takes much longer to guess than a short dictionary word. A random password of 16 or more characters might take millions of years to guess. A short dictionary password like “password” can be guessed in less than a second.

Use Two-Factor Authentication

I advise WordPress site owners not to rely on users to create secure passwords: people tend to choose convenience over security. Installing a two-factor authentication plugin on your WordPress site removes the risk of brute force attacks without relying on users to do the right thing.

There are many TFA plugins available for WordPress. Two Factor Authentication is among the most popular.

Limit Login Attempts

To find the right username and password combinations, attackers have to make a lot of guesses. By limiting the number of login attempts that can be made from an IP address, site owners reduce the likelihood that the attacker will ever guess the right combination.

WP Limit Login Attempts can temporarily block IPs if they make too many login attempts and display CAPTCHA tests to suspected bots.

In 2018, we expect to see more attackers taking advantage of crypto mining malware as cryptocurrencies rise in value. By following the steps we outline here, WordPress site owners can prevent their sites from being used to make money for criminals.

Posted in:
WooCommerce, WordPress

Photo by Mike Kotsch on Unsplash

Supporting an ecommerce site with WooCommerce means you have to the full force of WordPress behind you as well. And because WordPress is consistently one of the best platforms for blogging, all those words give you a boost in SEO.

But more than giving you an online notepad, WordPress also offers additional SEO bonuses with their endless library of plugins. Aside from allowing you to customize your ecommerce site as you like, plugins can also help you optimize your SEO strategy for the best results.

In this article, we’re going to talk about the 2 best WordPress plugins for improving SEO on WooCommerce sites.

1. All in One SEO Pack for WooCommerce by Visser Labs

Free. Premium version: $57 for first year, single site.

Michael Torbert’s popular All in One SEO Pack plugin certainly lives up to its name, garnering over 20,000 users and an average 4.5 rating. It was so successful that Visser Labs decided to expand the original plugin to better accommodate WooCommerce. The result is the All in One SEO Pack for WooCommerce, which enables the original plugin’s features on WooCommerce pages.

The package provides an impressive list of features with usability fit for beginners and experts alike. This original SEO pack plugin offers:

• Automatic meta tag generation (with manual override)
• Automatic title optimization for search engines
• XML Sitemap support
• Integration with most other plugins
• Google Analytics support
• Automatic attachment page redirection to parent posts
• Automatic notification of site changes for search engines
• Google AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) support

The WooCommerce version simply enables all these features for the meta data on ecommerce pages, including product descriptions and title attributes.

The paid Premium version gives you further features like advanced support for WooCommerce, video SEO modules, and SEO aids for categories, tags, and custom taxonomies.

2. Yoast WooCommerce SEO Plugin by Yoast

$49 single site.

One of the most common reasons people choose WooCommerce is because they’re already familiar with the WordPress interface. These people are likely already familiar with the Yoast SEO plugin as well, a favorite of bloggers for keeping their SEO at the top of its game.

If you prefer the functionality of the Yoast SEO plugin, you’ll be happy to know the company released a special version just for WooCommerce. The Yoast WooCommerce SEO plugin allows you to integrate the original SEO tool into your new ecommerce platform. It also enables you to use the breadcrumbs from Yoast SEO tool, rather than the more rigid WooCommerce breadcrumbs.

Even if you’ve never used Yoast before, you may want to consider this plugin just for its affinity with Pinterest. Yoast’s plugin allows social sharing with a “Product Rich Pin,” a card that appears on Pinterest with additional information. On top of the usual name and favicon displays, the plugin’s Rich Pin also showcases:

• Price
• Currency
• Availability (“In Stock”)

This enhances every share on Pinterest, turning a normal mention into a more detailed product placement. Depending on how strongly you rely on Pinterest, this feature alone could make the plugin worth investing in.

How do you manage the SEO for your ecommerce site? We want to hear your thoughts, so tell us what you think below in the comments section now.

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WooCommerce, WordPress