Ghouls Just Wanna Have Fun 👻


Read to the end to see a Halloween costume that’ll make you break down into the giggles.

In today’s edition:

  • Quoth the fake plugin malware, “Aw, Snap!”
  • The Monster’s Award party has begun, and it’s gonna be a graveyard smash.
  • Some practical tips for hunting zombie pages on your WordPress site.

Hot Off The Presses: What’s New?

Beware! That Pop-Up May Not Be What It Seems

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I coded, weak and weary
Over many a quaint and curious blog of forgotten lore –
While I nodded, nearly dropping, suddenly there came a popping
of some error gently stopping, hopping on my screen
“Tis some quick fix,” I muttered, “popping up on my screen –
Only this and nothing more….”

Oh, but IS IT?

 
Beware. A new malware campaign is targeting WordPress sites through a fake plugin that creates deceptive pop-ups.

The plugin, universal-popup-plugin-vXXX generates shape-shifting pop-ups that mimic your browser’s style and detect your regional language, making it even harder to spot the evil doppelgangers.

Choosing to “fix” the fake error in the pop-up leads to executing a PowerShell script that ends up downloading and running a Trojan virus, which can have pretty scary consequences.

The moral of the tale? And I quoth: there’s never a more important time to review your plugins and monitor your sites for suspicious activity.

They Did the Mash! They Did the TemplateMonster Mash!

Calling Wolf-Man, Dracula and the Crypt-Kicker Five… it’s time to vote for the Monster’s Award 2024.

This annual non-commercial event created by TemplateMonster recognises the most fearsomely well-made WordPress products by their categories, from builders to plugins to hosting services and more.

What’s really remarkable about the Monster’s Awards is how non-monstrous the selection process really is. Voting is free, paid advertising is strictly prohibited and candidate’s merits are taken into account in a fair way, guarding against external manipulation. They really take this seriously, guys and ghouls.

The result is an unbiased celebration of the best of the WordPress world – and the winners get to feast on glory, popularity and a terrifyingly-cool Monster badge for their website.

You can vote for your fave product across all 25 categories by clicking here. Or, if your tool of choice is absent from the list, you can nominate it here.

The deadline to vote is November 20th, so don’t miss your chance!

“It’s alive! It’s ALIVE!”

“In the waning glimmer of the computer screen, my heart leapt as I beheld the thing I had created.

Stitched together from the pale flesh of WordPress plugins, apps and third-party services, the automation began to glow with an incandescent light…

I watched it’s heart begin to beat.

An unspeakable beast built of simple actions and triggers that were dull and lifeless on their own… yet brought to life by an uncanny power.

I wept in awe. I cackled with glee.

Livid and alive, the automation took shape, crawled and began to run, performing tasks at a frightful, super-human speed.

With this power to forge connections between plugins and bring automations to life, I could connect Forminator to Groundhogg, ClickUp, even LearnDash! My mind reeled at the possibilities!

What secret grants me the capacity to build such abominations automations?

None other than Uncanny Automator.

Mind Bloggling Facts & Stats

  • According to stats from the Pew Research Center, 38% of web pages that existed in 2013 are now dead. RIP. (Source)
  • A shocking 90% of time on mobile is spent on apps, rather than browsing websites. (Source)
  • 81% of businesses believe that not adopting a headless WordPress approach could mean falling behind competitors. That’s not the only headless thing to watch out for though… (Source)
  • Pedestrian-related car accidents are twice as likely on Halloween night than any other night of the year. So, be careful and look both ways when you’re out trick-or-treating, folks! (Source)

Deep Dive: 🎃 A Guide to Killing Zombie Pages on Your WordPress Site

Hear that shuffling? Those low, haunting moans? Smell the sour stench of undead flesh?

They’re coming for you.

Zombie pages—those useless, forgotten URLs shambling across your site, dragging SEO, server resources, and user experience down with them.

Bring your shotgun, aim for the head and keep your site sleek and terrifyingly fast.

🪦 How to Identify and Kill Zombie Pages:

    Crawl Your Site for Dead URLs

    Zombie pages don’t make themselves known. They just quietly wait in the shadows like that one guy who got bit, but is still hiding it from the rest of the group. Use tools like Screaming Frog or Sitebulb to crawl your site and unearth the undead. Look for thin content, orphaned pages (with no internal links), or anything with lifeless traffic or engagement.

    Audit for SEO Cannibalization

    Multiple pages targeting the same keywords? That’s SEO cannibalization—a classic zombie move. Use Ahrefs or SEMrush to spot these duplicates, then consolidate content to stop them from fighting for rank and eating each other’s brains.

    Redirect with Purpose

    Unearthed an corpse page? Don’t just delete it and hope for the best. Use 301 redirects to guide visitors and search engines to healthier, living content. No one likes wandering into a 404 cemetery.

    De-index Thin Content

    Some pages are too small to kill but not worth keeping in search results. Use noindex in your robots.txt or meta tags to remove these low-value pages from Google’s gaze.

    Manage WooCommerce Product Graveyards

    Running WooCommerce? You’ve probably got abandoned products haunting your site. Disable out-of-stock products from showing in your catalog and redirect expired product pages to category archives.

    Don’t Be Too Hasty

    Take your time and evaluate each page carefully as it stumbles towards you. Merge, redirect, or optimize where possible—delete only as a last resort.

Zombie pages might seem harmless, but they’re silently creeping up on your site’s performance and SEO. Regular audits keep link rot from setting in and make sure your site never starts looking like the music video for Thriller.

Blogs & Resources You Shouldn’t Miss

Jetpack just patched a vulnerability that’s been lurking since 2016. Watch out for outdated installations that may leave a window open for an attacker to crawl through.

If the thought of designing a Halloween marketing campaign for your WordPress product fills you with pumpkin-spice dread, WPBean has some helpful ideas to get you started.

In for a real fright? Listen to these spooky web dev horror stories from Scott and Wes at Syntax.

On the October episode of One Footer in the Grave, Paul, Andy, John and Marcus decide whether each other’s improbable tales are true.

Vampires and werewolves aside, what really wakes you up in a cold sweat at 3am is the fear of your site vanishing without a backup. This episode of the Post Status Happiness Hour with David Johnson of Backups Next Gen is all about how to avoid that nightmare.

Coffee Break Distractions

The gallery at Pumpkin Gutter is an incredible testament to what can be achieved with a humble jack-o-lantern.

Killed by Google is a chilling graveyard of discontinued Google services, devices and apps.

If you’re hosting a scary movie night, Games Radar has a great cheatsheet of the 30 best horror films ever made.

If you can’t make it to Paris to tour the famous Catacombs this Halloween, this 4k virtual tour is as close as you’ll get – without the bones dripping on you.

If you’re in the US, check out Fright Find to find the best haunted house near your location. (If you pee your pants, don’t blame us.)

And, as promised, an Olympic-level Halloween costume – complete with contagious laughter.





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Posted in DEV