Category: How To

  • How to Change GoDaddy Name Servers

    How to Change GoDaddy Name Servers

    If your domain is hosted with GoDaddy, in order to point the site to the WPX server, you will need to change the Nameservers.

    In order to do this you will need to log into your GoDaddy account and go to the Domain manager.

    Clicking on the domain will lead you to the Domain Settings menu.

    Once you are at the Domain Settings page, scroll down until you see the Manage DNS link.

    At the DNS Management page, navigate to the Nameservers section and press the “Change” button.

    This will lead you to the DNS Management page where you will need to select the Enter my own nameservers (advanced) option and add the name servers associated with your account.

    The Nameservers settings window will then open. Here, select Custom if it’s not already selected;

    If there are other Nameservers listed already, remove them and leave only two fields.

    In these two fields, fill in the details for Nameserver 1 and Nameserver 2.

    The Nameservers can be found in the original Welcome email that you received when the account was activated. They can also be found in your WPX Hosting Dashboard (1) → Service Details (2) at the bottom of the menu, under Server Details:

    After you are sure that you have typed in the Nameservers correctly, click OK and then Save. That’s it!

    Keep in mind that the technical time for full DNS propagation is 48 hours. In some rare cases, it can take up to 72 hours, that’s just the nature of the way that the Internet was built. 

  • How to use WPX Cloud with Cloudflare

    How to use WPX Cloud with Cloudflare

    If you’d like to use Cloudflare as your active DNS zone, but you also want to use the WPX CDN then you can do that with just a few simple steps.

    Add your website in the Cloudflare dashboard.

    Add the Name servers provided by Cloudflare in your name servers menu at the domain registrar.

    You will now need the WPX Cloud IP Addresses so you can add them to the DNS zone at Cloudflare.

    In our case they are 194.1.147.16 and 194.1.147.20.

    Add the A records to the Cloudflare DNS zone.

    You will need to add four A records. An @ and www record for each IP address.

    Once the DNS changes take effect your site will load from the WPX Cloud.

  • Verify your domain for Google Search Console

    Verify your domain for Google Search Console

    Why should we verify our website in Google Search console?

    Verifying your website via the Google Search console will confirm the ownership of the site and provide detailed private Google Search data. Google Search console will allow you to understand the traffic of the site and implement improvements, that will affect its presence on Google Search.

    Open the Google Search Console property page and add your domain name in the Domain section.

    Press the Continue button which will lead you to the Verify domain ownership via DNS record page.

    You will now need to access your WPX Panel. Navigate to the Edit DNS menu. Select the domain form the dropdown and press the Add a new record button.

    You will now need to create a TXT record. Select the record Type: TXT, Host: @, copy the verification code and paste it into the Value / Target field and Save record.

    You can now Verify your domain name.

    Sometimes DNS changes can take a while to appear. Please wait a few hours, then reopen your property in Search Console.
    If verification fails again, try adding a different DNS TXT record.
  • What is website cache and how to clear it ?

    What is website cache and how to clear it ?

    A cache is used to store data, so that future requests for that data can be served faster. It stores a static version of your website and improves the site performance.

    There are two places where cache is stored, in the WPX Cloud and the cache plugin.

    How to clear the WPX Cloud cache:

    Access your Hosting Panel by loggin in to your WPX Hosting account, then go to My Services (1) → WordPress Hosting → Manage All Sites In This Account (2), as seen below:

    After following these steps, you will be taken directly to the Service Details section of your Hosting Panel.

    In the left menu, choose the WPX Cloud (1) tab. Then click on the Empty Cache (2) button.

    After the process is done you’ll receive a Success message, CDN Cache has been successfully cleared for wpxtest.com.

    How to clear the plugin cache:

    Using the File Manager.

    Go to My Services (1) → WordPress Hosting (2) → File Manager (3) and then select Open File Manager (4):

    Navigate to the website folder, wp-content/cache (1). Select the folders in the cache directory (2), right-click and Delete (3).

    Using the FileZilla.

    In order to connect to the server, you will need the Username (1), Password (2) and Server Address (3). You can find them under Service Details.

    After you have connected to the server, again navigate to the wp-content/cache (1) folder. Select the folders (2) in the directory and remove them.

    Download Screenshots

  • Integrate your WPX Subdomain  with Clickfunnels

    Integrate your WPX Subdomain with Clickfunnels

    In order to connect your subdomain with Clickfunnels, navigate to My Services (1) → WordPress Hosting → Edit DNS (2).

    After following these steps, you will be taken directly to the Edit DNS section of your Hosting Panel.

    From the Edit DNS section, choose the domain (1) name for which you would like to create the subdomain.
    Add a new record (2).

    Create a record of a type CNAME. In the host field add the required subdomain name. For the value type “target.clickfunnels.com”.
    Save the record and you are good to go. It can take 24-48 hours for DNS Records to fully propagate.

    Download Screenshots

  • How to maintain your WordPress website

    How to maintain your WordPress website

    No doubt, WordPess is one of the best platforms for building websites. It is easy to use and really flexible, which allows you to create any kind of a website – blog, business website, online store, or any other type of website related to any industry.However, maintaining a WordPress website can be a tedious job, especially if you are not sure what needs to be done in order to keep your WordPress website fast and secure.

    In this article, we’ll show you a couple of tips, tricks and tools that will help you maintain your WordPress website, without any technical assistance.

    The Site Health tool

    The Site Health tool, is a feature that was added in the 5.2 release of WordPress. It shows critical information about your WordPress configuration and items that require your attention. You can find the tool under Tools -> Site Health.

    Site Health Status

    In the Status section, Site health runs a series of tests for performance and security, which display if there is a need of improvements.

    The Performance tests check for WordPress and PHP versions, SQL server, required modules, UTF8MB4, scheduled events, HTTP requests, REST API, loopback requests.

    The Security tests check for active plugins and themes, HTTPs connection, background updates status, debug mode off, secure communication and if it can communicate with WordPress.org.

    Site Health Info

    In the Info section, Site health displays every detail about the configuration of your WordPress website. 

    Overall the Site Health tool provides useful information that can help developers troubleshoot user issues. That is why we should start with a quick health check of our website.

    It is important to create full website backups, before making any major changes.

    Keep your website Up To Date

    WordPress comes with a built-in update system which allows you to manage the WordPress core, plugins and themes. In order for your website to be performant and secured, it is very important to keep everything up to date.

    Most of the updates contain security patches, so they can prevent malicious attacks. Not updating the WordPress core, themes and plugins leaves your website to a much greater security risk.

    Delete Unused plugins/themes

    We use the plugins to extend the functionality of our websites, but having a lot of them reflects on the performance of the site.
    Too many plugins/themes can affect the site’s speed and they pose security threats. It is important to remove any unnecessary plugins and themes.

    Optimize your database

    The database is where all of your data is stored. Overtime the database can be cluttered with unnecessary data from previously used plugins, post revisions, comments. Optimizing your database will ensure that it will perform better.

    Let’s have a look on how can we clean our database.

    The WP-Optimize plugin

    One of the most used database optimization plugins for WordPress is WP-Optimize. With variety of functionallities like database cleaning, image compression, site cache, it is a tool that has everything you need to keep your website fast and optimized!

    Download WP Optimize

    The WP-Sweep plugin

    The Wp-Sweep plugin is one of these free plugins that simply gets the job done. It is focused purely on optimizing your database. This plugin uses proper WordPress delete functions as much as possible instead of running direct delete MySQL queries.

    Download WP Sweep

    Manage user accounts

    One of the most important thing when it comes to security is the user accounts management. It is recommended to change passwords every month or two. Use password generators to create strong, unique passwords for all of your accounts. Remove old user accounts, they are a potential threat to your website. Do not share the account username or password. If you need a developer or content creator to access the site, create a separate accounts for them.

    Use Caching

    A Cache is a hardware or software component that stores data. It is used to faster serve the data that is used often, rather than re-fetching the original data. This process increases the performance of the website for the end user.

    When you first visit a website the cache simply stores a static version of it. The next time you visit that site or a page, the browser uses that cache to load the stored content faster, which results with a faster loading website or webpage.

    How do I use cache with WordPress?

    In order to use cache with your WordPress website, you can use popular solutions like the W3 Total Cache, WP Rocket, WP Super Cache and others. Let’s have a brief look at them:

    W3 Total Cache

    One of the most popular cache plugin for WordPress, and recommended from WPX Hosting is the W3 Total Cache. It improves the user experience by increasing server performance and reducing load times. Highly customizable, free to download, the W3 Total Cache plugin is a good cache solution.

    WP Rocket

    WP Rocket is one of the most popular premium cache plugins for WordPress. Easy to use configure and user friendly. Once activated it immediately launches page caching.

    WP Super Cache

    Another popular cacheing plugin is the WP Super Cache. It is run by Automattic, the same team behind WordPress.com. With over 2 million Active installs it is one of the most used cacheing solutions for WordPress.

    Latest PHP

    It is important to create full website backups, before making any major changes.

    It is critical, that your WordPress website uses the latest version of PHP. Using an old PHP version makes your site insecure and much slower than it could be. Modern versions are much faster and they come with regular performance and security updates. Plugins and themes also require newer versions of PHP, updating them might break your site when using an old PHP version.

    SSL

    The Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a security protocol for establishing authenticated and encrypted connection between networked computers. It allows sensitive data to be send out securely. That is why having a SSL certificate installed for your website is a must.
    Securing your website should be a top priority! If you don’t have a SSL installed, you can issue one from Let’s Encrypt, or check our article on “How To Install A Free SSL Certificate”.

    Run Performance Tests

    Running performance tests can give you a more detailed information on what needs improving on your website. Fortunately for us there are tools like Google Page Speed, Pingdom and Gtmetrix, which can aid us test our websites.

    You might wonder, “Why are these tools showing me different results?”. That is because all of them have different set of recommendations. They are all based on the Google’s original open source PageSpeed library, and may have been customized and modified. Each one tests from different locations, which affects your performance results as well.

    They are all great to use for website optimization. Use the one that you feel more comfortable with and follow the instructions provided. If you are not completely satisfied, you can always double-check with another website speed analysis tool.

    Check for Broken Links

    One of the most important tasks during the website maintenance is checking your website links. Broken links can create a bad user experience and negatively impact your SEO rankings, that is why it is critical to fix them immediately. Broken links typically occur when moving to a new domain or a host, deleting posts or pages, or even making a typo while editing.

    How do I check if my website has broken links?

    There are a lot of tools that can scan the website for dead links, one of the best are the Semrush Site Audit, Google Search Console, W3 Link Checker and of course the Broken Link Checker plugin.

    Download Screenshots