My New WordPress Site

Please use the Your WordPress section of this forum to request feedback.

Hi,

From what I can tell I did post in the “Your WordPress” section. Am I missing something?

Thanks

Hi Shan, it’s a good start. Just a couple of comments from a quick look. You have social sharing sections on the top, the side and in the sidebar. It’s a bit much and one place would probably be enough. You might want to also consider if having items like privacy policy, terms of use etc in the top menu is the best place for them.

Thank you premiumwp!

Are you suggesting that I move the privacy policy, terms of use to the footer?

I’m still writing content so I figured when I have something more substantial I can use that real estate for something more useful.

I’ll take your advice about reducing the social sharing. Thank you!

Color Scheme is quite nice.

Make that Custom Google Search’s search field smaller to accommodate the search button side by side with search field. Remove that rotating glob, its taking time for rendering the page.

Your loading page needs to be improved –

https://www.webpagetest.org/result/120626_01_9KM/

(copy paste in browser address bar)

Add a CDN. You can use CloudFiles ($2 / month) or MaxCDN. It will reduce the load on server plus make the page loading faster.

Hi Abhishek,

Thank you for your feedback.

1. I thought I adjusted the width of the search box – apparently I didn’t. Thanks for pointing that out. Will fix that.

2. I’ll look into alternatives for the rotating globe. I had no idea that it could affect load time. I just thought it was really cool. That’s all =)

3. I have W3 Total Cache plugin installed but CDN is the one module I’m not using. I really don’t know much about CDN. Will do the research.

Thank you for your feedback. Much obliged!

Shan

It looks great, Theme and color combination is really good.

Thank you blograzzi.

Yeah, things like privacy policy, terms of use etc look better in the footer area.

decmaven, you are welcome.

You can read my tutorial on W3 Total Cache with CloudFlare Setup. The link to W3 Total Cache with CloudFlare Setup is available on W3 Total Cache’s official page is on Other Notes, August 2011, with my name, just below the link to Matt Mullenweg’s post.

CloudFlare is free, it will work in dual ways. However, using own CDN (for delivery of static contents geographically) has more plus points. For integration with CDN, you can search on my blog (after reaching indirectly) or other good blogs.
(I dislike to put direct link to my blog on WordPress forum unless I have added any extra point on development.)

Whatever the cache plugin is, a bit tweak of .htaccess always improves the performance. PerishablePress has plenty of needed security tips, should be your next priority. Your ./wp-admin/install.php is still accessible, for example.

Thank you premiumwp. I will incorporate your recommended changes. (already took the header social icons). Thanks.

Hi Abhishek,

Thank you very much for your reply. Just followed up on your advice and set up things the way you outlined in the tutorial.

I signed up with cloudflare (free account) updated my DNS records (although my domain registrar is still updating), followed the steps in your tutorial and installed the cloudflare plugin and the google speed online api.

I’m a bit confused about how FTP is handled in this situation. Also, I’m assuming that my access to files on my hostgator accounts won’t be disrupted. Please let me know if I’ve misunderstood.

I did not setup CDN in W3 Cache (the last part of your tutorial). It seems site performance without it is still going to be great without it.

On to security optimization. Will let you know how that works out. I recall coming across a security plugin that provides directions on how to make the tweaks. I gotta look in to that again.

Thanks,

Shan

Hello decmaven,

Its nice to hear, it has worked nicely for you too.

Do not use FTP as CDN. It is for nothing (files will be served from your own server not CDN).

What you can do is (if you want to use CDN) – Sign up for Cloud Files (rackspace.com/cloud/cloud_hosting_products/files/). It costs around $2 / month as post paid. You can cancel at any time. Create containers there – 5 or so. You will get URL for each container. In W3TC, there is option for Cloud Files. W3TC has tools to upload the files from your server to Cloud Files CDN (in CDN options).
You will get the guide for W3 Total Cache Setup for Rackspace Cloud Sites with Cloud Files here.

For Security, PerishablePress probably has the best guides : https://perishablepress.com/category/web-design/htaccess/

Free version of Bullet Proof Security plugin is enough to check whether the protection is right or not.

I usually block the access to vulnerable files from .htaccess using this kind of directives :

# prevent viewing of install file
<files install.php>
order allow,deny
deny from all
</files>

Hey Abhishek,

Thank you so much for all the information. I’ve followed through with the security implementation. Just downloaded bulletproof security and ultimate security checker. Hopefully this is enough.

Thanks again for your help. I’ve bookmarked your blog.

Shan

You are welcome decmaven and thanks for the bookmark. Bulletproof security plus ultimate security checker are usually enough.