WordPress
Installing, configuring, speeding up, securing and repairing WordPress.
25 articles
Setting up
- What is WordPress?
What WordPress is, the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com, and what you need to run it on your own hosting.
- How to install WordPress with Softaculous
Install WordPress on your Traxio hosting in a few minutes with Softaculous: the settings to choose, what to avoid, and what to do straight after.
- Settings to change straight after installing WordPress
A short checklist for a new WordPress site: permalinks, site address, discussion, users, unused plugins and themes, and search engine visibility.
- How to log in to WordPress admin
Where the WordPress login page is, what to do if you’ve forgotten the password or the password reset email never arrives.
- How to change your WordPress site URL
Change WordPress’s address safely: in settings, in wp-config.php when you’re locked out, and in the database after moving domain or switching to HTTPS.
Running WordPress
- Choosing WordPress themes and plugins without slowing or breaking your site
How to judge a theme or plugin before installing it, how many is too many, and the warning signs of a risky or abandoned add-on.
- How to send WordPress email through SMTP
Stop WordPress password resets, contact forms and order emails going missing by sending through an authenticated mailbox with an SMTP plugin.
- Updating WordPress, themes and plugins safely
Why updates matter, the safe order to update, how automatic updates work, and what to do if an update breaks your site.
- Caching WordPress on shared hosting
How page caching makes WordPress dramatically faster, how to choose and configure a caching plugin, and the pages that must never be cached.
- How to secure a WordPress site
A practical WordPress security checklist for shared hosting: updates, logins, users, file permissions, wp-config.php and backups.
- How to back up WordPress
Three ways to back up a WordPress site on Traxio — Softaculous, a plugin, or files plus database — and how to keep backups off the server.
- Choosing the right PHP version for WordPress
Which PHP version WordPress runs best on, how to check plugin compatibility, and how to switch PHP versions on Traxio without breaking the site.
- WP-Cron: replacing it with a real cron job
How WordPress’s built-in scheduler works, why scheduled tasks can run late on quiet sites, and how to run WP-Cron from a DirectAdmin cron job.
- Cleaning up and optimising the WordPress database
What bloats a WordPress database — revisions, transients, spam, orphaned plugin tables — and how to clean it safely.
- How to move a WordPress site to Traxio
The options for moving WordPress from another host: migration plugins, Softaculous import, or a manual files-and-database move, with URL fixes afterwards.
- Speeding up WordPress with LSCache
Install the LiteSpeed Cache plugin, enable server-level page caching, and set exclusions for logged-in and shop pages.
- Using a subdomain as a staging site Filed under Files & FTP
Set up a private copy of your site on a subdomain to test updates, PHP versions and redesigns without risking the live site.
WordPress problems
- WordPress white screen of death: how to fix a blank page
A blank white WordPress page almost always hides a PHP error. How to reveal it, and how to fix the plugin, theme or memory issue behind it.
- “There has been a critical error on this website”
What WordPress’s critical error message means, how to use recovery mode, and how to find and disable the plugin or theme causing it.
- “Error establishing a database connection” in WordPress
Fix WordPress’s database connection error: check wp-config.php credentials, database user permissions, the database host and damaged tables.
- Can’t log in to WordPress: fixes for common login problems
Login page refreshes, redirect loops, ‘cookies are blocked’, 403 on wp-login.php and forgotten passwords — the fix for each.
- Why is WordPress slow? How to find and fix the cause
Measure before you change anything, then work through the usual causes of a slow WordPress site: no caching, heavy plugins, big images and old PHP.
- “Allowed memory size exhausted” in WordPress
What the WordPress memory exhausted error means, how to raise WP_MEMORY_LIMIT within PHP’s limit, and how to find what’s using the memory.
- WordPress stuck on “Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance”
Why WordPress gets stuck in maintenance mode after an interrupted update, how to remove the .maintenance file, and how to check the update finished.
- “The uploaded file exceeds the upload_max_filesize directive”
Why WordPress rejects large uploads, how to check the current limit, and the options for uploading files bigger than it.
- How to turn on WordPress debugging safely
Use WP_DEBUG, WP_DEBUG_LOG and WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY to see WordPress errors without showing them to visitors, and turn debugging off afterwards.
- How to clean a hacked WordPress site Filed under Security
A step-by-step recovery for a compromised WordPress site: contain it, restore or clean, close the way in, and check it’s clean afterwards.