Addressing WordPress 4.9.4 Update and Vulnerabilities

Posted on by Libby White | Updated:
Category: Common Fixes, Featured Articles | Tags: ,

If you run WordPress sites you likely know it is critical to make sure that your software is up to date. In fact, you may have automatic updates enabled, so your site updates as soon as WordPress updates are available.  If you are running WordPress sites on a Liquid Web product such as our Storm VPS or Dedicated servers, please read on. This article contains critical information for you regarding WordPress 4.9.4 updates and action is required.

Note:

For customers on our Managed WordPress or Managed WooCommerce Hosting platforms, we’ll make sure your WordPress install is automatically updated; you do not need to take any action.

WordPress 4.9.4 is now available and addresses a bug in 4.9.3, which will cause automatic updates from WordPress 4.9.3 to fail. This means your site needs to be manually updated to 4.9.4.

Fortunately, updating your WordPress install is pretty simple (We do suggest that you take a site backup before updating, as with any software update.)

  1. Log into your WordPress admin page (www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin). Once logged in you should see a prompt in the WordPress dashboard, as shown below:wordpress admin dashboard update section
  2. Click on the Please update now text, which will take you to the WordPress Updates page. You can also click on Dashboard → Updates, where you will be taken to the same WordPress Updates Page.wordpress update home page, click update now
  3. Click the Update Now button. The WordPress update will run, and after it completes, you’ll see the page below:wordpress 4.9.4 updated successfully

As always, our Helpful Human Support team is standing by to assist you with any questions or concerns, just open a chat, ticket, or call us and we’ll be ready. You can also find more information about this maintenance release on the WordPress.org site.

Importing your web store into WooCommerce

Posted on by Dan Pock
Category: Common Fixes, Other | Tags: , ,

Do you run a web store on Shopify (or BigCommerce) and wish you had more control over things? Maybe you wish you had more Payment options on your shop, more Staff accounts, or a more straight forward shop building experience. No matter what the cause, moving to a WooCommerce based shop can give you more control and flexibility over your store. Migrating your store can be a huge headache though, so how do you get that job done?

How can I migrate an existing e-commerce store from Shopify or BigCommerce over to WooCommerce?

Moving platforms can be a frustrating and scary experience. After all, if your web store is down you’re probably not making any money. So getting it done right the first time is just a little important. Thankfully if you are moving from Shopify or BigCommerce that process can be simple.

Both Shopify and BigCommerce have export options that allow you to export products, orders, and customers to CSV files. You can then use these CSV files to rebuild your store in WooCommerce. Export files from Shopify, or BigCommerce, can be imported into your WooCommerce store using the WP All Import plugin.

Create a direct ‘Add to Cart’ link for Products in WooCommerce

Posted on by Dan Pock
Category: Common Fixes, Other | Tags: ,

If you run a blog and a store all on the same WordPress instance, chances are you are going to talk about products you sell in your blog posts. So how can you make it really easy for your visitors to add products you blog about directly to their cart? You can create a URL that you can use in your posts. Continue reading “Create a direct ‘Add to Cart’ link for Products in WooCommerce” →

Setting custom related products in WooCommerce

Posted on by Dan Pock
Category: Common Fixes, Getting Started | Tags: , ,

In one of our last articles on WooCommerce we covered how to turn off the related products section. Along a similar line of thought what if you want to customize this area instead of disable it? In this article we’ll show how you can control the related products that show in this section of your product pages!

By default WooCommerce allows you to have related products by categories. But what if you want to specify specific products to be related to other products? What do you do? The good news is there’s a free way to make this happen.

How can I set specific related products?

Custom Related Products for WooCommerce is a free plugin available in the WordPress.org plugin repo. You can download this directly from your site and activate it with a few clicks. Once installed and active you should see a new Related Products field in your products Linked Products tab.

With the plugin activated you can now begin manually setting related products for your shop items. Once you type three letters the text field will provide a drop down to select the products you’d like to show up.

Using this text field select all the products you’d like to show up as related. Once you’ve selected the products you can save, or update, the product to commit the changes. It’s really that easy to manage once you have the plugin installed.

TAKEAWAY

Running your own eCommerce store can be a very fulfilling experience, setting up and customizing that store can be another story. Picking the right eCommerce solution and hosting platform is a big deal though. If you go with a less common solution you’re gonna have less knowledge resources when it comes to customizing your store.

When you choose WooCommerce, you’re choosing a store platform that powers 42% of all eCommerce stores. That’s kinda a big deal – it means that if you want to try something custom, someone else may have a solution already. With such a huge, and active, community there’s no doubt WooCommerce is a great choice. When paired with a great host choosing WooCommerce becomes a no-brainer.

Control number of products per page in WooCommerce

Posted on by Dan Pock | Updated:
Category: Common Fixes, Other | Tags: ,

A common question that comes up after someone gets their WooCommerce store setup is about customization. Setting up your store and getting the products loaded in is just part of running any webstore. One of the biggest benefits to WooCommerce is the opportunity for customization.

In the coming posts on WooCommerce we’ll explore some basic customization tasks that come up. Starting with a simple one, say you wanted to adjust the number of products that are shown per page in your shop. Continue reading “Control number of products per page in WooCommerce” →

Accessing man pages on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

Posted on by Dan Pock
Category: Common Fixes | Tags: , , ,

Having access to man pages on your server is a pretty essential asset to be familiar with. If you’re not familiar with man pages they are documentation provided with software packages on Unix systems. They provide a sort of manual for applications, services and system resources. You can learn more about man pages in our introductory article. By default on Ubuntu based servers this command is not provided, since it’s a great tool to have access to this article will help you get them setup.

Continue reading “Accessing man pages on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS” →

Enable Root Login via SSH

Posted on by Dan Pock
Category: Common Fixes | Tags: , ,

By default SSH comes configured in a way that disables root user logins. This is done as a security precaution and means that you cannot directly login as the root user over SSH. However you can usually get around the need for root ssh login by using the sudo command. In some cases though it’s just more convenient to get directly logged in as root.

Continue reading “Enable Root Login via SSH” →

Guzzle & Securi: Fixing 403 request errors

Posted on by Dan Pock | Updated:
Category: Common Fixes | Tags: ,

When using GuzzleHTTP client if the domain you’re interacting with uses Securi you may find some unexpected results. Generally the issues come in the way of 4XX or 5XX error response codes. Oddly enough the issue presents itself when the Url works normally in the browser (or curl), but presents an inexplicable 403 with Guzzle. Some of your mileage may vary based on the domains Securi settings and configuration, but this tip can usually get you on the right track! Continue reading “Guzzle & Securi: Fixing 403 request errors” →

What is a Canonical tag?

Posted on by Dan Pock | Updated:
Category: Common Fixes, Other | Tags: ,

To put it simply a canonical tag is an HTML tag used to indicated to search engines that similar URLs are actually the very same page. The canonical tag is added to pages using a link element in the HEAD of the HTML document.

If two URLs contain the same canonical tag this indicates to search engines to index the pages as a single entry. Continue reading “What is a Canonical tag?” →