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If you are a perceptive user, you may have noticed a setting in your dashboard related to WordPress pingbacks and trackbacks. In any case, chances are good that you have no idea what these techniques are or why they are controversial.

Simply put, pingbacks and trackbacks are technologies that notify other websites when content has been posted that their users might find interesting. While that sounds pretty good in theory, there are also a number of downsides to using both strategies, which is why we recommend that you disable them. In this article, we will start by explaining what WordPress pingbacks and trackbacks are and address their pros and cons. Then, we’ll show you how you can disable both on your website.

Let’s take a look!

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Introduction to WordPress trackbacks and pingbacks.
The first thing we need to do is to clearly define the terms “pingback” and “trackback.” Although they are similar in many ways, the two are still distinct techniques.

What are WordPress trackbacks?
A trackback is a notification that WordPress sends to an external site when you link to it in your content. Let’s say you just published a new blog post about tips for buying a laptop, which includes a link to another website that contains some great tips for your readers.

In this scenario, you might send a trackback “ping” to that site to get the owner’s attention. That person might then choose to approve the trackback. This would show an excerpt of your post and a link to your site in their comments section.

What are WordPress pingbacks?
Pingbacks in WordPress have a very similar purpose, but they work slightly differently. In fact, they were actually created to be a better version of trackbacks in order to solve some of the problems with the technique (which we will see in a moment).

The key thing to understand is that while trackbacks are sent manually, pingbacks are automatic. To illustrate this, we will go back to our previous example. Suppose you set up pingbacks on your blog and just posted that article on laptop buying tips (linking to the same external website as before).

In this case, a pingback would immediately be sent to the site you linked to, provided that pingbacks are also enabled. That site would then automatically check to see that the pingback came from your post (and was not a type of spam), before displaying it as a simple link in the comments section. In most cases, pingbacks will not include an excerpt from the post in question, although this depends on the theme a website uses.

As you may have guessed, trackbacks and pingbacks work very similarly. The most important differences are ‘under the hood’: the communication technologies used are different. However, it is not necessary to understand all the technical details to get an idea of the pros and cons of using these techniques.

Pros and cons of using WordPress trackbacks and pingbacks on your site
To understand why we recommend that you disable pingbacks and trackbacks, let’s address their pros and cons.

Pros
It is easy to see why so many people have used both pingbacks and trackbacks in the past. Potential benefits of these technologies include:

• Increasing backlinks to your site, driving traffic to you and improving search engine optimization (SEO) .
• Building links to related sites and encouraging them to share your content by showing your willingness to promote theirs.
• Offer more value to your readers by introducing them to other content they may find useful .

Against
The biggest problem with trackbacks is that they were soon used to send huge amounts of spam. Since trackbacks can be manually sent to any site, spammers use them to post their links on as much content as possible.

Keeping these spam trackbacks away from your site requires checking them manually since there is no other way to verify that they are not fake. Of course, the time spent moderating these trackbacks could be better used for other activities. It also makes them much less valuable than they could be in a theoretical sense.

As mentioned earlier, pingbacks were designed primarily to solve this spam problem. That is why they work automatically and require verification before they can be posted. Also, they will not even be posted unless both blogs have pingbacks enabled.

However, pingbacks soon fell victim to the same downsides as trackbacks. Many spammers were able to easily overcome the protections put in place. This resulted in false and malicious pingbacks. Again, this means that sites with this feature enabled generally have to spend a lot of time moderating the resulting comments .

In addition, you can end up with something called “auto-ping.” If you link to another post or page on your site, the pingback feature will send a notification (as if you were linking to an external source). This is not very useful and can quickly become a nuisance, although you can eliminate this problem with a free plugin like No Self Pings.

Most sites should disable WordPress pingbacks and trackbacks (here’s how)
There has been much controversy over the years about whether the use of pingbacks and trackbacks have several disadvantages. Nowadays, however, it is widely recommended to avoid both techniques .

After all, the use of WordPress pingbacks and trackbacks tends to generate spam and wasted time. While they may provide some benefits, there are better ways to drive traffic to your site .

Moreover, very few people actually use these technologies legitimately. This means that, more than in the past, you are likely to receive many more fake pingbacks and trackbacks than legitimate ones.

Fortunately, disabling both on your site is a simple procedure. In the WordPress dashboard, you can go to Settings > Discussion :

Here, we recommend that you uncheck the first two options:

• Attempt to notify all blogs that have a link in the article
• Allow notification links from other blogs (pingback and trackback) for new articles

This will prevent your site from creating and receiving pingbacks and trackbacks. As a result, it should be easier to keep track of the comments section . In addition, you will free up time that can be devoted to more effective strategies.

Block pingbacks and trackbacks!
Pingbacks and trackbacks have advantages in theory, but there are many reasons why they are rarely used nowadays. Ultimately, the downsides of both outweigh the potential for a slight increase in traffic and visibility.

Keeping WordPress pingbacks and trackbacks active on your site is likely to cause spam from people who just want to get a link of any kind posted to your content. The good news is that you can quickly disable both options in the WordPress settings screen .

Comment spam is a fact of life on the Internet. If you enable comments on your website, you will have to deal with spammers. To prevent your site from making a bad impression, you will have to find a way to stop comment spam.

Although you may not be able to eliminate spam completely, you can do a lot to decrease it. For WordPress users, there are simple changes you can make to block or hide these comments before your visitors see them. You can even use an effective anti-spam plugin to strengthen your defenses.

In this post we’ll talk a little bit about what comment spam is and why it happens. Then we’ll show you six simple ways to stop comment spam on your WordPress site.

Let’s take a look!

What comment spam is (and why it’s a problem)

Spam comments are often easily recognized by their generic content.

If you allow comments on your site, you are bound to receive comment spam. As your site becomes more popular, spam is likely to become an even bigger problem. There are many types of comment spam these days, but most of it is automated, posted by spam bots that use short, generic posts as cover to include links.

Whatever form it takes, comment spam is a real problem because:

• When comment sections are full of spam posts, it is harder for legitimate visitors to have conversations.
• Leaving spam comments on your content makes your site look unprofessional.
• Many of these comments include malicious links designed to induce visitors to provide personal information.

Clearly, it is critical to do everything you can to prevent comment spam from appearing on your WordPress site. Fortunately, this is not difficult to do once you know the right techniques.

How to stop comment spam on your WordPress website (6 simple solutions)
The following six solutions are all smart ways to stop comment spam on your website. You can try all of these methods or choose the ones most relevant to your needs.

1. Reduce the number of links allowed per post
   As mentioned earlier, most comment spam is designed to add links in the comments section and get people to click on them. Therefore, one way to combat spam is to allow fewer links in comments. Legitimate visitors will also be prevented from posting many links, but slowing down spammers may be worth this potential inconvenience.

From the WordPress dashboard, you can go to Settings → Discussion to make this change. Look for the Comment Moderation section :

Here you can decide how many links will be allowed in a comment before it is marked for moderation. You can also reduce the number to zero if you want to request moderation for any comment with links.

2. Create a list of blacklisted words.
   Many spam comments contain recognizable keywords. This makes it easier to detect them and prevent them from being displayed on your website. You can simply create a “blacklist” of words and your site will mark any comment that contains one.

To do this, go back to Settings → Discussion in the WordPress dashboard and find the section Words Not Allowed in Comments :

Here you can enter your list of words. When a comment is posted that contains one of these words, it will be sent directly to the trash. Of course, it is important to choose the words on your blacklist carefully so that you do not delete legitimate comments. For suggestions, you can check the recommended comment blacklist for WordPress on GitHub.

3. Limit commenting privileges to registered users
   The goal of most spammers is to post on as many pages and sites as possible. This means that if you can make it harder for them to add their comments to your site, they may simply move on to the next goal.

You can achieve this by limiting commenting privileges only to users who have registered on your site . This puts an additional barrier between spammers and the comments section. As a side benefit, it encourages visitors to register for an account or subscription.

This option is also available in the Settings → Discussion section in WordPress. You will find it in More comment settings :

Just check the box labeled Users must be registered and logged in to comment and save changes.

4. Set up a comment moderation system
   Simply put, comment moderation is when you require that some or all comments be approved by someone before they can be posted on your site. If you have time and resources to spare, this can be a smart strategy.

In WordPress, you can enable a comment moderation system very easily. Simply go back to Settings → Discussion and check the section Before a comment appears :

By selecting The comment must be approved manually , all comments left on your site will be kept as Pending until they are reviewed. You can then review them all and decide whether to let them pass or delete them. You can find more tips on setting up a comment moderation system on the WordPress site.

5. Use an anti-spam plugin
   Finally, it would be remiss not to mention anti-spam plugins. These tools can be an effective way to stop comment spam and can take care of separating positive from negative comments.

Many WordPress installations come bundled with Akismet, and for good reason:

This anti-spam plugin connects to a constantly updated database, so it is very useful in recognizing which comments create problems and filtering them out. It also allows you to see which comments have been flagged.

Akismet is a great option for most users, but there are also other excellent alternatives. ,Antispam Bee, For example, is a well-reviewed plugin that has several customizable settings and features.

Whichever plugin you choose , you will take an important step in stopping comment spam on your website.

6. Switch to a new commenting system (such as Disqus).
   This method doesn’t work for all sites, but with some third-party comment systems, such as Disqus, they can help you eliminate most of the spam for you. Another solution is to use Facebook comments on your site.

Conclusion
Spam comments can quickly ruin your site, making it look unprofessional and driving away real visitors. Cleaning up all that spam after the fact is challenging. That means you should consider spending some time up front to develop a robust anti-spam strategy.

To stop comment spam on your WordPress site, you can:

1.Reduce the number of links allowed per post
2.Create a list of words on the “blacklist’
3.Set up a comment moderation system
4.Restrict commenting privileges to registered users
5.Use an anti-spam plugin, such as Akismet .
6.Switch to a third-party comment plugin.

The overall performance of your site can significantly affect your search engine rankings. Google uses several metrics to measure the quality of your site, including the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP). Therefore, improving your LCP score can help your website perform better and rank higher in SERPs.

Fortunately, you don’t need a lot of technical skills to get started. By identifying the heaviest element on your page, you can take the necessary steps to optimize your content and speed up your site.

In this post, we will look at how to measure LCP. We will then share five strategies that can help you improve the Largest Contentful Paint score in WordPress.

Let’s get started!

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How to measure Largest Contentful Paint
Five ways to improve the largest contentful paint in WordPress.

1. Optimize your images
2. Eliminate resources that block rendering
3. Use a content delivery network (CDN)
4. Remove unused plugins
5. Reduce the response time of your server
   Improve your LCP in WordPress today
   How to measure the largest contentful paint
   In 2020 Google introduced the Core web Vitals project . The popular search engine uses this set of metrics to measure the performance and quality of your site.

One of these metrics is called Largest Contentful Paint and measures the time it takes for a page to fully load the largest element on the screen. In most cases, this content is a prominent visual element such as a slider or hero.

You can measure your LCP score using Google’s PageSpeed Insights . This tool collects dreal performance data from different users and provides a breakdown of each score:

In addition to giving you the times, it will also identify the actual element on your site that Google uses to determine the largest content in the Diagnostics section further down the page

Most other speed testing tools can now also test the largest contentful paint, and this can give you a little more flexibility for testing from different locations, devices and connection speeds.

According to Google, a good LCP score should be 2.5 seconds or less. If the largest element of your pages takes longer to load, it can cause a poor user experience (UX) . This can, in turn, lead to a higher bounce rate. Therefore, it is essential to optimize your site to achieve a better LCP score.

Five ways to improve the largest contentful paint in WordPress
As we have seen, your LCP score plays a key role in the overall performance of your site. With that in mind, let’s take a look at five effective ways to improve this score and speed up the loading of your website!

1.Optimize your images
2.Eliminate resources that block rendering
3.Use a content delivery network (CDN)
4.Remove unused plugins
5.Reduce your server’s response time

1. Optimize your images.
   As mentioned earlier, LCP measures the time it takes for a website to render the largest element on the page. Media files such as images and videos tend to be the heaviest files.

To solve this problem, it is essential to optimize your images . In fact, this method is recommended in your PageSpeed Insights report

To resize your images and optimize them with tactics such as compression and webP format , you can use an image optimization tool such as Optimole :

This plugin optimizes your WordPress images in real time and makes sure each graphic element is resized correctly for different devices. It also compresses your photos without compromising their quality.

In addition, Optimole will serve your images through a content delivery network (CDN). This way, when someone visits your website, the optimized graphics will be loaded from the nearest network location instead of from your WordPress site’s server, reducing download speed.

By resizing and compressing your images, you can greatly increase the speed of your site. Smaller files will load faster, which, in turn, will improve your LCP score.

2. Eliminate resources that block rendering
   Resources that block rendering are HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files that force browsers to delay rendering content on your site. Therefore, these elements increase page load times, which results in a poor LCP score.

You can solve this loading problem by removing the elements that block rendering or by forcing their execution after everything else has loaded. Fortunately, this process is simpler than it sounds.

In fact, you can use a plugin such as WP Rocket , which will do all the work for you:

This tool will automatically remove all CSS and JavaScript that blocks the display on your website. As such, the plugin will help minimize any lag in content rendering, resulting in faster loading times for users of your site.

If you are using WP Rocket, the most useful settings to enable are in the File Optimization tab .

Under CSS Files , enable the following:

• Optimize CSS Publishing > Remove Unused CSS.
  Under JavaScript Files , enable the following:
• Load deferred JS
  Delay the execution of JavaScript

3. Use a content delivery network (CDN).
   Another effective way to improve the Largest Contentful Paint score in WordPress is to use a content delivery network (CDN), a network of servers distributed in different locations.

When you use a CDN, your visitors will be provided with cached copies of your content from the server geographically closest to them. In this way, your site will load faster for your users.

In addition, a CDN minimizes the load on your hosting server further increasing the speed of your site.

If you are using Optimole, you are already benefiting from a CDN to upload your images. But you may also want to use a CDN for your other static files and to further improve your Largest Contentful Paint score.

If you want to set up a hassle-free CDN, you can take a look at RocketCDN. It is directly integrated into WP Rocket:

This tool automatically applies optimal configuration settings to improve the performance of your site. The CDN is powered by StackPath , which has over 45 edge locations around the world.

A CDN can be a good investment if your site targets an international audience. It makes sure that your content loads quickly for all users, regardless of their location. This configuration can significantly improve your LCP score.

4. Remove unused plugins.
   Your LCP score can also be affected by the plugins you use on your WordPress site. Heavy software can slow down your site, especially if these tools use a lot of CSS or JavaScript.

PageSpeed Insights recommends removing all plugins that add volume to your pages:

More specifically, you will need to eliminate all tools that load unused CSS and JavaScript. Having many unused scripts on your site adds unnecessary data transfer. Thus, these processes slow down content rendering.

The PageSpeed Insight report provides you with the URLs of problematic scripts to help you identify those heavy plugins. However, if you have a large number of tools on your site, removing them can still take a long time.

Therefore, you might start by removing any unused or unnecessary plugins from your site. You can then try to find lighter alternatives.

5. Reduce your server’s response time.
   Server response time, also known as time to first byte (TTFB), is the time it takes for a user’s browser to receive the first byte of content from your page. Slow server response times will result in delays in page loading, which will affect your LCP score.

As noted in PageSpeed Insights, plugins, themes, and hosting service can affect server response times:

If you have removed unused plugins and scripts from your site and are still getting a poor LCP score, the problem may be your server. Therefore, it may be time to upgrade to a better hosting plan.

Shared hosting is often the best solution for new websites because it is affordable. However, with this package, you share a server with many other website owners. Therefore, if the server receives a large number of requests at once, it can slow down response times.

As your site grows and you begin to receive more traffic, it is worth considering upgrading to a more advanced plan. We recommend opting for managed WordPress hosting . With this solution, your web host will handle all the optimization tasks necessary to keep your website running smoothly.

You might also consider a virtual private server (VPS) or dedicated hosting . Although these services can be a bit expensive, you will get more server resources. In addition, the provider will configure the server according to your specific needs and requirements. Therefore, it will be better equipped to handle large amounts of traffic and efficiently deliver your content.

Enhance your LCP in WordPress today
The user experience (UX) and loading time of your site can affect your visibility in search results. Therefore, it is critical to improve the overall performance of your site, including your LCP score.

In this post, we reviewed five effective ways to improve the largest contentful paint score in WordPress:

1.Optimize your images, using a compression tool.
2.Eliminate resources that block rendering with a plugin
3.Use a content delivery network (CDN)
4.Remove unused plugins from your site.
5.Reduce your server’s response time by upgrading to a more powerful hosting plan.

You may already know how search engine optimization (SEO) works and why it is important. However, it is not enough to use keywords in your posts and write catchy meta descriptions . For optimal website performance, you will also need to work on image SEO. In this post, we will take a closer look at SEO for images and how it can improve your WordPress site. Then, we will share some practical tips for optimizing your images.

Let’s get started.

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What is SEO for images?
Images make your site visually more attractive and at the same time break down your content into more assimilable sections. However, photos also contribute to the overall performance of your website.

Whether you are setting up your first WordPress site or conducting an SEO audit , it is critical to spend some time optimizing your images. This process may involve writing alternative text , compressing images or ‘using relevant keywords in file names.

When done well, image SEO can make your content easier for search engine crawlers to understand and can, in turn, increase your ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs). Optimization can also help your photos appear among the top image search results.

Finally, SEO for images can also help you improve the performance and ‘user experience (UX) of your site . For example, compressing your photos and using the correct size can speed up the loading of your website. Since page speed is a ranking factor for Google, this process can further increase your visibility in SERPs.

How does SEO for images improve your site?
As we mentioned, SEO for images can be beneficial to your website. Let’s take a closer look at its impact on your site’s performance. In 2020 Google launched the Core Web Vitals project , a set of metrics that measure website performance and quality. You can test your website with a tool like PageSpeed Insights .

As you can see, images can (and will) affect your site’s score. Your LargestContentful Paint (LCP) score indicates how long it takes your website to load its largest element. In many cases, that element will be a photo.

In addition, PageSpeed Insights can give you some tips for image optimization:

Large image files can slow down your site, which may drive visitors away. Slow loading times can also hurt SEO. Google views loading speed as an indicator of quality. It wants users to be able to find the information they are looking for quickly.

For this reason, image optimization can speed up page loading. This increased speed can lead to better UX, improving your visibility in search engines and impressing your website readers.

SEO for images can also make your website more accessible . This is especially true if you use alternative text to describe your photos. This feature allows users with visual impairments to better understand your images. We’ll take a closer look at alternative text (and other best practices for image SEO) in the next section.

6 best practices for optimizing image SEO
Now that you know a little more about how SEO for images works, it’s time to look at some best practices for boosting your site’s performance. If you follow these six tips for optimizing your images, your site will definitely improve.

1. Assign descriptive file names to images.
   As mentioned earlier, image SEO allows search engines to understand your images. You can make this process even easier by assigning descriptive file names to your photos.

By default, any photo taken with your camera and transferred to your computer will have a file name similar to this: DSC1234.jpg . This title does not provide any information about the content of your image.

Therefore, before uploading your images to WordPress, you should definitely give them SEO-friendly names. We recommend that you avoid generic file names (e.g., “restaurant.jpg”) and try to be more specific (e.g., “first-dish-at-restaurant.jpg”). This will allow Google and other search engines to index them more easily and display the images in more specific searches.

2. Compress and resize your images.
   If you have a site with a lot of media, you may want to optimize your images. Large files will put a strain on your server, take up a lot of space in your site’s memory, and load much more slowly than smaller ones.

For this reason, we recommend that you compress your images before uploading them to your WordPress site. You can do this by using your favorite photo editor or an online tool such as TinyPNG :

Alternatively, you can install an image compression plugin such as Imagify . This tool will automatically compress any image you upload to your site.

Optimization tools reduce the file size of your images, making your site lighter. There are two main types of compression:

• Lossy compression : helps you remove large amounts of data from your image files, but can affect the quality of your photos.
• Lossless compression : reduces image files without affecting their quality.

In addition to compressing your photos, you will also need to use the correct image size on your pages. By default, WordPress generates different image sizes for each photo you upload, including thumbnail, medium, and large.

It makes sense to use the thumbnail version for images in your blog feeds. Similarly, you will need to resize your images when designing web pages or using them in blog posts. Using images larger than necessary will only add an unnecessary burden to your pages.

Also, we recommend that you use the right format for the images on your site, as you may need a small JPG instead of a transparent PNG or animated GIF . You should also try to provide WebP images whenever possible.

3. Use images in the right context
   To help Google better understand your images, you need to be sure to use them in relevant places in the post. This process involves placing your pictures near contextual content.

For example, imagine you are writing a blog post about the best attractions in Rome In that case, you should place photos of the places or landmarks you mention in relevant sections. As we have done in this article, you can use text to introduce the image you are about to show. However, using these same images of Rome in a blog post about French cuisine that makes no mention of §Italy has the potential to make Google think your content is unreliable .

In addition, you can write captions to make your photos more contextual:

Captions help readers understand what an image represents or where it was taken. This feature can further improve the UX of your site. Alternative text is also an important player in contextualizing your images.

4. Add alternative text or alt text
   Alt text is perhaps the most important component of SEO for images. It is a piece of text that describes the content of a photo, and search engines use that text to understand what is being shown in images. Therefore, using alternative text can help your content appear in relevant search results.

Alternative text also makes your images accessible to screen readers, tools used by people with visual impairments. If you include alternative text, screen readers can tell visitors what your images represent.

You can add alternative text to an image within the WordPress editor . All you have to do is click on your picture, then access the settings panel to your right. Here you will see a field for alternate text:

To further improve the SEO of your image, we recommend that you be as descriptive as possible in your alternative text. Ideally, you should describe to readers exactly what the image represents in one or two sentences.

5. Add images to your sitemap
   Google recommends adding your images to an existing sitemap . Alternatively, you can create a separate sitemap just for your images.

Regardless of which option you choose, including images in a sitemap allows Google to discover and index your images. This, in turn, can increase your search engine rankings.

Some optimization plugins such as Yoast SEO automatically add images to your sitemap. Alternatively, you can use a plugin to complete the process. Finally, you could contact a professional service or SEO expert to create a sitemap for your website.

6. Use relevant keywords in your Pinterest images
   In addition to optimizing the images on your site, you may also want to work on any graphics or photos you post on other platforms. This tip is critical if these images link to your website.

Pinterest is still a great source of referral traffic for many sites. This social media works like a search engine. It allows users to find all kinds of useful content, from fashion ideas and do-it-yourself tips to travel guides and recipes:

Even within Google image searches, you are likely to find images that link back to the Pinterest page rather than the source site. If you add images from your site, we recommend that you save them to relevant Pinterest boards so that you maintain more control over your content. We recommend that you provide an informative title and description for each photo:

It is also a good idea to include relevant keywords in your descriptions and titles. These elements can help make your images more visible when Pinterest users (and Google proxy users) search for particular information.

Conclusion
SEO for images is the process of optimizing your site’s visual files. It can help your content rank better in search engines and improve the performance of your website. You should focus on using descriptive image file names, compressing photos, and adding alternative text. And if you’re active on Pinterest, you’ll also want to use relevant keywords for your photos (and if you’re not on Pinterest, you might consider this because it brings a good amount of traffic to many sites).

Are you having problems with cumulative layout shift (CLS) in WordPress?

Cumulative Layout Shift, or CLS for short, is a user experience-focused metric that is part of Google’s new Core Web Vitals initiative .

If you’ve ever browsed a page that “jumps” as it loads, you’ve experienced the layout shift, and you also know how annoying the cumulative layout shift in WordPress can be. But in addition to annoying your visitors, CLS can also affect your search engine rankings, so it’s important to fix any problems with your site.

Fortunately, you don’t have to be a tech wizard to identify and fix cumulative lyout shift problems. By understanding the causes and knowing how to correct them, you can reduce the number of unexpected changes on your website.

In this article, we will introduce you to Google’s cumulative layout shift metric and show you how to detect CLS problems on your site. Then, we will guide you through three simple ways to fix the problems and reduce your site’s CLS score.

What is cumulative layout shift
Layout shift occurs when page content shifts without user interaction.

A common example is late-loading advertisements, which you have probably encountered on multimedia websites. You may have started reading text on the page only to be “pushed” down by an advertisement that is displayed after the page has already loaded.

Cumulative layout shift is a metric that measures all the layout shift that occurs on the page and puts it into a single score. In general, a high score indicates many layout shifts (not good), while a low score indicates few layout shifts (good). And a score of zero means your site has zero layout shifting problems, which is perfect.

As you can imagine, moving elements around can generate headaches for your users. there is a risk that they will inadvertently click on a part of your page or even accidentally make a purchase.

Although there are no direct consequences, many layout changes can be visually annoying. They can also slow down loading times. This seemingly minor problem can have serious repercussions on the user experience (UX) of your audience .

Unfortunately, the problems with a high Cumulative Layout Shift score do not end there. Cumulative Layout Shift is also part of Google’s new Core web Vitals initiative. Starting with the Google Page Experience update, your site’s Core web Vitals scores are now an SEO ranking factor, which means that problems with CLS can affect your site’s ranking .

How to identify problems with cumulative layout shift in WordPress
To find out your site’s Cumulative Layout score and identify problems, we recommend using PageSpeed Insights . It will give you your site’s overall CLS score, but it will also go deeper and flag specific layout shift issues that are causing problems.

To begin, enter your URL in the box and click Analyze . The process should take only a few moments. When you receive the results, scroll down to and look for your site’s cumulative lyout shift score:

From here, you can determine your site’s performance in this area. As a rule of thumb, there are three potential ranges into which your CLS score can fall:

• Good , which is 0.1 or less
• OK , which is between 0.1 and 0.25
• Bad , which is 0.25 or more

Since this metric directly affects the optimization of your Core web Vitals , you should try to aim for as low a score as possible. For more specific suggestions on how to do this, you can scroll down to the Diagnostics section and look at Avoid Significant Layout Changes . This section will list individual layout changes on your site:

This information can help highlight specific areas of your site that may need some work. Once you’ve identified the problem, you can apply some simple methods to fix it.

How to fix cumulative layout shift in WordPress (3 ways)
Let’s take a look at three effective ways to fix CLS problems. These methods are most effective when used together, so we encourage you to try each approach.

1. Add dimensions to your images, videos, and ads
   If you have different media on your website, chances are that each image and video will have different sizes. This is probably unavoidable, regardless of the type of site you run.

In essence, this variance has no direct impact on your CLS score. However, it still poses a threat: if you do not specify the size of the article, you can run into problems.

Adding dimensions is essential because it provides vital loading instructions to browsers. Size information helps browsers reserve the correct amount of space for that resource.

If the browser is unable to do this, it may be predicting the wrong amount of space. As a result, there may be corrections after the page has loaded, leading to a shift in layout. The same principle applies to ads or any material embedded in your site.

Fortunately, recent versions of WordPress largely take care of this problem. If you insert an image via the WordPress editor, WordPress will automatically handle defining its dimensions for you. You can see the results by selecting any media:

Se aggiungi immagini manualmente con il codice o tramite un plugin, assicurati che le dimensioni dell’immagine siano presenti.

Un altro problema con il CLS su WordPress è la pubblicità. Se inserisci annunci pubblicitari nei tuoi contenuti , dovrai assicurarti di riservare spazio a tali annunci per evitare CLS.

Un modo per farlo è applicare le proprietà CSS min-height e min-width al contenitore

che contiene il tuo annuncio: Google ha una guida su come farlo .

Se ad esempio, visualizzi un annuncio 300x250px all’interno di un div con l’id in-content-ad, puoi prenotare spazio utilizzando questo codice:

INSERIRE IL CODICE DELL’ANNUNCIO QUI

Alcuni strumenti pubblicitari potrebbero anche offrire strumenti per aiutarti a raggiungere questo obiettivo. Ad esempio, se utilizzi Google Ads , Google fornisce un editor di annunci per aiutarti in questo.

2. Preload your fonts.
   Just as with media, your site probably uses different types of fonts. This means they can also take up varying amounts of space. Unlike media, however, you cannot set exact sizes for fonts.

Instead, the solution is to preload these resources. Preloading fonts signals to browsers that it should be one of the first things it generates for a given page. By including fonts first, you eliminate the need for corrective shifting.

This method can be especially critical if you use many custom WordPress fonts . These can vary greatly in size from normal fonts, which means that this simple change can have a big impact. However, even less font-dependent sites are likely to experience at least a slight improvement in CLS score.

Many WordPress performance plugins include options to preload fonts. For example, Autoptimize, Asset CleanUp, Perfmatters, and WP Rocket.

For most people, using one of these plugins is the easiest way to preload WordPress fonts.

More advanced users, can also preload fonts with custom code snippets. To add this code snippet, you will need to edit the file header.php your child theme . You can edit this file by going to Appearance > Theme Editor > Theme Header on your WordPress site:

After editing the header.php file in your child theme, scroll to the bottom of the page, then copy and paste the following line of code, making sure to replace the sample font link, roboto.woff2 in this example, with the actual link to the file font you are using on your site:

When you are ready, click Update File to save your changes. That’s all you have to do: now your website fonts will have priority loading in browsers.

3. Optimize your dynamic content
   Finally, let’s talk about your site’s dynamic content. Dynamic content such as newsletter sign-up forms , app installation requests, GDPR notices, and so on can all cause layout changes by adjusting the browser again after the page is almost fully loaded.

However, this only applies to dynamic content that is not triggered by user interaction. For example, if you are loading an automatic notification bar to greet people on your home page, this could hurt your CLS score.

There are two ways to solve this problem:

1.Activate dynamic content only after user interaction, which will not affect your CLS score. For example, instead of showing the email activation form right away, you could activate it when a user clicks a button to create a two-step consent.
2.Use CSS to reserve space for dynamic elements, similar to what was discussed above. For example, if you use CSS to reserve space for the notification bar at the top of the page, you can still load that bar without causing the layout to shift.

Fix CLS in WordPress Forever.
If you want to create a good user experience and improve your score in Core web Vitals, it is important to have a low Cumulative Layout Shift score. Fortunately, preventing this annoying problem is not difficult. You can correct your site’s loading problems by paying attention to a few simple settings.

In this article, we covered three ways to correct and reduce cumulative layout shift in WordPress:

1.Make sure all your media and ads have clearly defined dimensions. WordPress will automatically handle the images you embed in the editor, but you may have to manually define sizes for ads and any images you add outside the editor.
2.Preload your fonts to avoid last-minute changes.
3.Pay attention to how you implement dynamic content, requiring user interaction or reserving space for any dynamic elements.

The use of images can enhance the content of your website. However, file compression is critical to prevent them from taking up unnecessary disk space and hurting your site’s performance. To ensure that you are properly optimizing your images, it helps to understand the difference between lossy vs lossless (lossy and lossless) compression.

In this post, we will start by explaining both clossy and lossless compression. Then we will discuss when to use lossy vs lossless data compression on your WordPress site.

Let’s get started!

Table of contents displays
What is lossy compression?
Lossy compression reduces file size by removing as much data as possible. As a result, it can cause degradation that reduces image quality. In any case, most of the lost information should not be noticed by visitors when using a balanced compression ratio.

Lossy compression has been developed for a variety of file formats. It is most commonly associated with JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) and Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) formats . You can also use this compression method for audio and video files as well.

Below is an example of an image before and after lossy compression. On the left is the original at 389 KB. The image on the right has a 95% reduction in size:

As you can see, there is no visible difference in appearance, despite the significant reduction in file size. However, different levels of compression can affect the quality of compressed images.

The same principle applies to audio files. For example, you can use loossy compression to reduce the size of MP3 files. However, this may reduce the quality of the audio.

Pros and cons of lossy compression
The main advantages of lossy compression are data elimination and size reduction. Creating smaller file sizes can improve the performance and loading time of your site. In turn, this can improve your user experience (UX) and search engine optimization (SEO) .

On the other hand, there are some drawbacks of lossy compression. First, you cannot restore files to their original form. In other words, the process is irreversible. In addition, the deletion of data can affect the quality of the image.

Lossy compression is a trade-off: the smaller the file size, the greater the performance. However, the more data that is lost, the more the image quality will suffer.

What is lossless compression?
Unlike lossy compression, lossless compression does not remove critical data from the image file. Instead, it removes metadata and non-essential information that does not affect the appearance or quality of the image. Although this compression method can help reduce file size slightly, the difference is usually not significant.

Two popular file formats associated with lossless compression are zipped archived files (ZIP) and Portable Network Graphics (PNG) images. Lossless compression has been developed for text, images, and audio. In fact, some of today’s largest streaming services, such as Apple Music and Spotify , use lossless compression for audio files.

Pros and cons of lossless compression
The main advantage of lossless compression is that you don’t have to worry about degrading the quality of an image or making it look pixelated. Also, unlike lossy compression you can restore an image to its original format without any loss of data.

However, there is a significant downside: lossless compression has a lower data retention capacity. Since this compression method does not reduce the size of the data, you will not save as much storage space.

When to use Lossy vs Lossless compression on your WordPress site.
The best compression method for your website depends, in part, on the file formats you use . For example, PNGs are best suited for logos, illustrations, icons, and text with transparent backgrounds. However, most standard images on the web are JPEGs.

We recommend that you use lossless compression for PNGs. In contrast, lossy is more suitable for JPEGs.

WordPress automatically compresses JPEG images (reducing the file size to about 82%) when you upload these images to your media library. You can adjust this level of compression by editing your functions.php file . In any case, we do not recommend this method unless you are familiar with the code.

Regardless of the default settings, you can further optimize your files with lossy or lossless compression. You can use image editing software such as Adobe Photoshop or a WordPress image optimization plugin such as Imagify , WP Smush or ShortPixel .

You can also use a free online tool such as TinyPNG :

Now that we better understand lossy vs lossless compression, it’s time to analyze when it’s best to use each method on your WordPress site. As we have seen, both types of compression have unique advantages and disadvantages.

When to use lossy compression in WordPress
If disk space and bandwidth are among your biggest concerns, it is best to use lossy compression. To speed up your site, Google recommends lossy compression via a WordPress plugin. You can also use GZIP compression to further reduce your files.

In most cases, we suggest using lossy compression for WordPress images. The loss of data is largely unnoticeable, but it can greatly improve loading times. Therefore, this method is ideal for e-commerce shops, portfolio sites and blogs.

Lossy compression can optimize images and product thumbnails in your shop. You can also use it for blog posts and pages with illustrative photos.

Again, depending on the level of compression used, there is usually not a noticeable difference in quality unless you enlarge the images. Also, you can usually choose the level of compression.

The Imagify plugin, for example, allows you to select the optimization level based on how aggressive you want the compression to be:

Lossy compression is best for WordPress images because most people will not see the reduction in quality. Our eyes have varying sensitivity to colors and brightness . Compression algorithms take advantage of the way humans process images to make data removal and quality reduction almost undetectable.

When to use lossless compression in WordPress
Generally, lossless compression is best for images with heavy text and images with transparent backgrounds. We recommend it for RAW, BMP, GIF and PNG file formats.

If image quality reduction is an issue, you may be better off opting for lossless compression. It will keep your images looking sharp while also reducing file size.

Lossless compression might also make sense if your site relies heavily on visual content, such as a photography website. In that case, you can optimize your images and site performance by using other methods, such as leveraging a content delivery network (CDN) .

Conclusion
Optimizing image files is an effective way to improve the speed and performance of your WordPress site. However, it can be difficult to decide between lossy and slossless compression. On the one hand, you probably want to save disk space. On the other, you won’t want to harm the look and quality of your content.

As discussed in this post, both lossy and lossless compression have advantages and disadvantages. We recommend lossy compression for most Web sites because it can significantly reduce file size without removing any obvious data. However, lossless compression may be better if you are more concerned about image quality than loading times.