Notes on keeping WordPress sites healthy
Guides, case studies and release testing, with the numbers and sources behind every claim. Two posts a month. Follow by RSS.
Guide ·
How to tell if a WordPress plugin is abandoned (and what to do about it)
Six public signs that a WordPress plugin is abandoned or changing hands, where to find each one, and what to do for each: from waiting and watching to replacing it.
Case study ·
Display Widgets (2017): what Health Score would have shown
Display Widgets was sold in May 2017 and shipped a backdoor a month later. Replaying its public history, Health Score would have flagged the change of hands on the day of the sale.
Case study ·
Essential Plugin backdoor: what Health Score would have shown
We replayed the public history of the 31 Essential Plugin plugins through Health Score. Its first email would have gone out 12 to 16 May 2025, about 12 weeks before the backdoor shipped.
Case study ·
Seven ways an update breaks a site: what WordPress and Update Watch catch
A lab test with seven kinds of broken plugin updates. WordPress caught one on its own. With three pages and a check text set up, WordPress and Update Watch together caught four.