We have many WordPress plugins are available for your use. All are free, and all provide a unique add-in for your WordPress sites (in our humble opinion). (Although, if you want to buy me a hot chocolate and a blueberry muffin as appreciation for a plugin that works well for you, there’s a yellow button over there on the right…)
ChatBot Blocker
Our latest plugin blocks ChatGPT and Bard and other compatible chatbots from using your site content by adding a specific command to your site’s virtual robots.txt file. Note that an actual robots.txt file in your site root will override the virtual commands.
The plugin also adds your sitemap.xml file to the virtual robots.txt file. It’s available here.
Privacy and Security
Secure your WP site with common security settings that you can selectively enable. Includes several security and anti-hacking features, plus some customization of your login screen. Disables certain functions/processes that are potential security issues. Can block some comment spam (although our Block Comment Spam plugin https://wordpress.org/plugins/block-comment-spam-bots/ is more effective). Can ncrease memory allocations. Shows your current htaccess file contents with suggestions for improvements, so you can monitor any changes.
NEW FEATURES:
– Optionally adds directives to the WordPress virtual robots.txt file to block site scanning by AI bots. This blocks the use of your site content by those AI agents, such as ChatGPT, OpenAI, Bard, and others. It does not affect search engine scanning or any SEO, nor does it affect the user experience of your site.
– Now shows any hidden plugins (which might be malicious), plus lists all plugins with versions and status (active, inactive).
We use this on all of our managed WordPress sites, as a convenient way to secure the sites without using a bunch of different plugins.
Plugin available here.
Block Comment Spam Bots
Building on our very effective FormSpammerTrap (see below), the Block Comment Spam Bots plugin blocks bots from cluttering up your blog’s comment area. And it does it before the comment is written to the comments table, so it reduces the load and database size on your site.
User Profile Access Control
If you have a low-privilege user account that you want to protect from changes (like password changes), then you need a way to block that user’s access to their user profile. And that’s what the User Profile Access Control plugin does. Very simply – only admins can change those user profiles. And you can set it to apply only to specific user accounts.
FormSpammerTrap
Although not a plugin, we have a way to block contact spam on WordPress sites. We don’t like comment or contact form spam cluttering up our (and our clients’) WordPress sites. And we have found very few (if any) anti-spam solutions that don’t rely on unreliable solutions like hidden fields, or annoyances like hard-to-read Captchas. Our solution is much more efficient: if you try to automate a comment or contact form with your spammy content, you’ll get sent to our FormSpammerTrap (FST) site.
All the details are on our FST site. The main page is what form spammers see when they try to spam our forms or comments. Then look at the ‘How It Works‘ page for details. And you can even try to attack our contact form with your ‘bot’ process. Go ahead – it won’t work!
Plus, you can now easily add the FormSpammerTrap functions to any input form on your site. Full instructions on the free file download on the site. And, we can help implement for a small charge. No spam for you !
You can also get similar protection with the WordPress Plugin page., but we include instructions on how to implement it via a template page.
Simple GDPR
The Simple GDPR plugin will put a simple GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation from the European Union effective 25 May 2018) notice on your web site to allow visitors to accept your use of cookies and other personal information. It will optionally create a basic Privacy Page, using suggested language from the US Better Business Bureau. Optionally, you can enter your Google Analytics ID to perform server-side GA tracking – because a visitor’s ad blocker may block the use of the client-side JavaScript GA tracking code.
It’s a simple plugin, and will easily let you become GDPR compliant. But note that we are not lawyers, so you should verify the messages and Privacy Content with your legal advisors. We think that our plugin complies (simply) with the GDPR requirements, but cannot guarantee the usability and suitability of our solution. Your mileage may vary!
It’s free with no ‘premium’ features. It’s available on the WordPress plugin page .
AmazoLinkenator
We wanted an easy way to change links to Amazon products to include our Amazon Affiliate code. It had to be done automatically, without any special codes or buttons or anything. Just paste the product link into your post, publish, and our Affiliate code would be magically added. And we wanted a way to shorten the links so they weren’t so long. And we couldn’t find one that worked liked we desired.
So, we wrote our own plugin that does just that! All you need is an Amazon Affiliate code (they’re free), and optionally a Bit.ly Generic Access Token (they’re free too). A few settings on the Settings screen, and all Amazon product links are changed to include your Affiliate code. Auto-magically!
It works with pages, posts, and comments. If a comment entered by a visitor includes an Amazon product link, your Affiliate link is added automatically. Even if it already contains another Affiliate code – why should your site lose out on Affiliate revenue from comment links?
And the automatic URL shortener will make those long Amazon product links into an ‘amzn.to’ link – effectively ‘hiding’ your affiliate code.
It’s all automatic. URLs are processed when you (or your commenter) saves the content. It’s great for any site, especially a site with lots of authors.
Check it out! It is on the WordPress Plugin page.
URL Smasher
We run lots of WordPress sites, and sometimes very long URLs get in the way of the content. And we’ve seen long URLs on other sites displayed strangely.
So we wanted to find a URL shortener that would work easily for everyone. One that didn’t require you to click a button, or put in a shortcode, or do other things that might be hard for content authors.
And we didn’t find one that worked like we wanted.
So we wrote our own! The result is URL Smasher. All you need is a Google API key (they’re free). Then any URL in your page or post or comment will automatically be shortened to a ‘goo.gl’ short URL. Fast, easy, and effective.
Check out the plugin. You can download it via the WordPress Plugin page.
These plugins (below) are in need of updating. Working on it, Boss!
FormSpammerTrap for Contact Form 7!
This plugin adds our successful FormSpammerTrap (FST) techniques to Contact Form 7 forms. All you need to do is add a simple shortcode to your form. And your form will now be protected from spambots without using techniques that don’t work – like hidden fields, silly questions, or irritating Captchas.
It’s very effective! If you can do a bit of programming (it’s not hard, we provide full instructions), you can create a page template that uses the FST techniques on a contact form.
Just like all our other plugins, it’s free and fully featured, and available on the WordPress plugin page ..
Multisite Comment Display
Since the Multisite Media Display and Multisite Post Readers work so well (and are easy to use), we decided that one for comments would be a good idea. And it is! It works like the other ones: just activate it on your main site and then create a page or post with the shortcode. Add parameters to limit the number of comments shown, or only the last x days. Admins will get an edit link to edit comments.
It’s free and fully featured, and available here, although it’s best to get the latest version via the WordPress plugins page .
Multisite Media Display
We needed a way to look at all the media on all sub-sites of a multisite installation. And we couldn’t find a plugin to do that. And code samples of how to do that were spread out all over the place.
So, we made a plugin. By using a simple shortcode, you can display all the media on all subsites on one page/post. Pictures are displayed with their captions. A second shortcode is used to create picture links that will open the Media Editing page (only SuperAdmins can do this). That’s the reason we built the plugin: we needed a way to see all media on all subsites to ensure terms of use compliance. And you can add a ‘noshow’ caption to pictures you don’t want to display.
Just like our other plugins, it’s free. It’s available here, although it is best to get the latest version via the WordPress plugins page.
Multisite Post Reader
So after we wrote the Multisite Media Display plugin, we needed a way to display all posts from all multisites. And, again, we didn’t find one that worked like we wanted.
So, we modified the MMD plugin code (since it worked with media attachments, which are stored as ‘posts’) to display posts. So now you just need to use a “mpr_display” shortcode on a page/post to display all posts from all sites in a multisite system. This allows you (as the SuperAdmin) to monitor all posts on your multi-site system. Although meant for multisite systems by creating a page/post on the ‘master’ site, it will also work on standalone sites. You could use it to display all posts for visitors.
If you are the SuperAdmin of the multisite, an ‘edit’ link will be shown on each post; shift-click to open in a new window/tab. A “Read more” link is provided for all posts.
Each post has a clickable title, and also shows the date of the post.
And, once again, like all of our plugins, it’s free. Full featured, no premium extra-cost features. It’s available via the WordPress plugins page.