GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 44 - July 2019

henever you start building a Word- Press website, you’ll likely run into the same problems during develop- ment – every time. As a developer, you know what needs to be done to make the website dance to your tune, but WordPress often either lets you do it in some strange way that doesn’t really work, or it doesn’t let you do it at all. WordPress is the best solution for website development, yet some basic things remain almost impossible unless you install a plugin that fixes the missing functionality. Here is a selection of plugins that repair what’s wrong with WordPress and make your overall WordPress installation more powerful. Install these plugins as you need them – or simply install them all on every website, as the problems will be the same with every WordPress installation. This guide should help fix the most common problems inherent in WordPress. There are definitely more plugins that could have appeared on the list, or a different plugin could have been chosen for a specific problem. In any case, keep your plugins updated at all times, and don’t use too many – it can be a security risk and could slow down the website. Remove Category URL by Valerio Souza RATING ACTIVE INSTALLATIONS 60,000+ Remove Category URL is the one plugin I install on every website I own. The problem is, of course, that WordPress by default has an unnecessary URL segment that says “/category.” This is redundant, and it’s undesirable to lengthen the URL, which means it’s less readable for human visitors and a potential SEO problem. While it’s possible to put a dot in Settings -> Permalinks -> Cat- egory base, which is supposed to remove the category base altogether, I’ve found that sometimes it doesn’t work as intend- ed and produces a “404 error” when a category is clicked. An easier solution is to install a no-maintenance plugin that fixes the issue for good. To find more plugins that fix this issue, search for “remove category.” Redirection by John Godley RATING ACTIVE INSTALLATIONS 1,000,000+ This simple plugin is a perfect solution for all your redirection needs, and it’s particularly useful because you can enter your full affiliate link as the outgoing link that’s being replaced. The plugin even tracks the number of clicks. This is a lightweight plugin that eliminates the need to redirect things manually in Apache (.htaccess file). Though you’ll still have to use Apache to do domain-level redirections such “ashttp to https” or “non-www to www,” Redirection takes care of everything else. You can even create groups of redirections to keep affiliate links separate from page redirections. 41 G P W A t i m e s . o r g