Web Development - CidCity Arts+Designs

5 WordPress Plugin Types That Are Essential for Your Website

Juan Abreu Rodríguez — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 06:26:40 +0000

5 WordPress Plugin Types That Are Essential for Your Website

April 29, 2019
Updated on August 22, 2021

Juan Abreu Rodríguez

Author

The plugins are modules that when installed on WordPress allow us to add certain features such as create a contact form on the website, create an online store, add a forum to the website, social network icons to share in the blog, use a cache to increase the loading speed of the website, and more.

A WordPress plugin is essentially a bit of code that “plugs in” to your self-hosted WordPress site. In human terms, that means a WordPress plugin is something that adds new functionality to your WordPress site or extends existing functionality on your site (Kinsta, 2021).

These are essential plugin types that can help you to improve your WordPress website with effective and quality features:

Force to SSL Plugins

SSL certificates help to provide safety to the visitor of websites, it is a way to tell your customers that the site is genuine, authentic, and reliable to enter personal data.

To understand the SSL Certificates technology, please read our post shared below:

The Importance of SSL Certificates in Websites

So what happens if you start your website before paying for SSL support?

Well, you will have to migrate your HTTP website to HTTPS website to provide the security.
For that, you will need a plugin to force the website to run in HTTPS with SSL Certificates technology and features.

There are different plugins to help you with this difficult task, here some honorable mentions:

Really Simple SSL:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/really-simple-ssl/

WP Force SSL:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-force-ssl/

SSL Insecure Content Fixer:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/ssl-insecure-content-fixer/

If you are having trouble trying to make your website appears on web browsers with the padlock to secure your visitor’s information, please use:

Why No Pedlock Website
https://www.whynopadlock.com/

They can help you find where the problems are to get easier to resolve and complete your transition to https using SSL Certificates to guarantee the security of your visitor’s information.

Backup Plugins

Imagine that you are updating your website, something goes wrong, your page run completely damaged, and you are unable to roll back.

Security is one of the most important things on your website, you always need a backup in case of any inconvenience with your website or host.

Here is a list of the most used plugins for backups, with these you can download your WordPress website to your desktop them uploaded back quickly:

All-in-One WP Migration:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-wp-migration/

Duplicator – WordPress Migration Plugin
https://wordpress.org/plugins/duplicator/

WP Staging – DB & File Duplicator & Migration
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-staging/

Caching Plugins

The browser cache is a temporary location that has web browsers such as Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer and allows you to load web pages faster by saving part of the information previously requested on the computer.

For example: when you enter a website, is stored in the browser cache, what you really do is connect to a server somewhere in the world that has the images, videos, and texts that make up that web page. If that page has very long videos or large images, it is likely that you will have to wait several seconds until you see it complete. The advantage is, if the same or another person later visits that same page, being stored in the cache will load much faster and the user will have to wait less time to see it.

Why is important to have a cache plugin on your website?

The importance is that if you make updates on your website, and you don’t clear the cache, your visitor doesn’t go to see the changes unless they clear their browser cache memory.

So is very important to clear cache in your website and here we got some of the most used plugins that you can use to make that job on your WordPress website:

WP Fastest Cache:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-fastest-cache/

W3 Total Cache
https://wordpress.org/plugins/w3-total-cache/

WP Super Cache:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-super-cache/

Hide Login Plugins

This type of plugins is very important because in this life hackers exist, so you need to protect your website the best way as possible, and one of the most common website security task is to hide the admin login page.

Thanks to God and the amazing plugin’s developers out there, we can configure the admin login site, and is important because WordPress gives us a standard admin login page that every web developer needs to know;

Here some of the most common plugins that help us to hide our admin login page:

WPS Hide Login:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wps-hide-login/

Custom Login Page Customizer | LoginPress:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/loginpress/

SEO Plugins

Search engine optimization is the process of improving the visibility of a website in the basic results of the different search engines like Google, Bing, etc. It is also common to name it SEO.

This type of plugins is very important if we talk about appearance in the top on the most common search engines.

Try typing CidCity Arts in Google:

You see that the website appears on the top. That’s because we configured a SEO plugin that helps us to tell search engines how exactly we want that the website appears.
Also, there are plugins that help with keyword optimization, readability check, Internal linking suggestions and more:

Yoast SEO:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo/

All in One SEO Pack:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/

WordPress SEO Plugin – Rank Math:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/seo-by-rank-math/

WordPress has become one of the most popular CMS (Content Management System) to manage websites, thanks to its great capacity for customization through the plugins that provide the platform with alternative tools.

WordPress is continuously evolving to address the needs of the millions of web publishers around the world. The direction of WordPress directly depends on the needs of users. We can safely assume that it will continue to empower people around the world to create wonderful websites (McCullough & Editorial Staff, 2021).

Plugins are a fundamental and essential part of our website and therefore learning which are necessary, install them and of course, configure them, is one of the most important tasks of the website administrators.

Reference

Do you remember the Gaussian Blur effect in Adobe Photoshop?

Juan Abreu Rodríguez February 28, 2025

The Gaussian Blur Effect in Adobe Photoshop is one of the most versatile and powerful techniques for professional image editing. Its use ranges from photo retouching to the creation of cinematic and magical effects. Let’s delve into how to apply this effect and its multiple applications in design and photography.

Felipe Mahón [Project #27]

Juan Abreu Rodríguez May 2, 2023

Package Information:
-Awesome Logo Design
-Business Card Design
-Letterhead Design
-3D Mockups

Vieta Fit Nutrition [Project #26]

Juan Abreu Rodríguez February 8, 2022

Package Information:
-Awesome Logo Design
-Business Card Design
-Letterhead Design
-3D Mockups

The post 5 WordPress Plugin Types That Are Essential for Your Website appeared first on CidCity Arts+Designs.

How Browser Cookies Helps You and What Are They For?

Juan Abreu Rodríguez — Sat, 20 Apr 2019 21:56:04 +0000

How Browser Cookies Helps You and What Are They For?

April 20, 2019
Updated on August 20, 2021

Juan Abreu Rodríguez

Author

A browser cookie is a file generated by a website that contains small amounts of data that is sent between a browser and a website. In the case of the Internet, the sender would be the server where the web page would be hosted, and the receiver is the browser that you use to visit any web page.

Its main purpose is to identify the user by storing their activity history on a specific website so that they can offer the most appropriate content according to their habits. This means that each time a website would be visited for the first time, a cookie would be saved in the browser with information. Then, when the user access to the same website again, the server asks for the same cookie to make the configuration of the site and make the visit of the user as personalized as possible.

Continue reading to understand how this works.

What is the idea of the browser cookies?

The common use of cookies is to identify yourself on a website. Users would be identified by entering their credentials on a validation page; cookies allow the server to know that the user would be already validated and therefore can be allowed to access services or perform operations that are restricted to unidentified users.

Other websites use cookies to customize their appearance according to the user’s preferences. Sites that require identification often offer this feature, although it is also present in others that do not require it. Personalization includes both presentation and functionality. For example, Wikipedia pages allow identified users to choose a presentation style to their liking; The Google search engine allows users (even unregistered users) to decide how many search results they want to see on each page.

Also, websites use HTTP cookies to streamline your web experiences. Without cookies, you’d have to log-in again after you leave a site or rebuild your shopping cart if you accidentally close the page. Making cookies an important a part of the internet experience (Kaspersky, 2021).

There are websites that use cookies to collect information so they can offer publicity related to your searches.

Did you remember looking for a product and in some websites appears advertisements for the same product category?
This works because cookies allow the detection of pages visited by the user in a specific site or group of sites to make the experience as personalized as possible, but in some cases can be scary, right?

According to a European Union report on data protection that analyzed close to 500 web pages, 70% of cookies are third-party cookies and track our activity to offer personalized advertising.

Types of browser cookies

First Party Cookies: With this, the websites will be able to remember your preferences such as menu settings, themes, language selection, and internal bookmarks between sessions. With first-party cookies, you can make those selections on your first visit, and they will be consistent until the cookie expires (Price, 2018).
Third-party cookies: they are own when the cookies would be managed from the terminal or domain of the same publisher. Third party, when not sent by the publisher, but by another entity. First-party cookies also play an important role in user authentication. If you were to disable them, you would need to re-enter your login credentials every time you visited a page (Price, 2018).
Session and persistent cookies: in session cookies, the data collected is only collected while the user is browsing the website. In the case of persistent data, the data would be still stored in the terminal and can be accessed for a certain period of time.

Technical cookies for personalization, analysis, and advertising: technical cookies would be those that control traffic and data communication; those for personalization, those that leave the user’s access according to some own characteristics that are collected (browser, language, etc.). The analysis data collect data on the behavior of users and allow to develop a user profile. Finally, advertising companies collect data on the management of advertising spaces.

Wrong ideas of web browser cookies

Cookies are not similar to worms and viruses, that can erase data from users computers.
Cookies are not a type of spyware, so they cannot read personal information stored on user’s computers.
Cookies do not generate pop-up windows.

Cookies are not harmful; they don’t carry viruses or malware, and they don’t store personal information about you. But some websites may not be secure, which can allow hackers to intercept cookies and abuse the information they carry (Vasic, 2021).

Actually, cookies are only data, not code, then they cannot erase or read information from users computers. However, cookies permit the detection of pages visited by a user in a particular site or group of sites. This information can be collected in a user profile. These profiles are usually anonymous, so they do not contain the user’s personal information (name, address, etc.). In fact, they can not contain it unless the user has communicated it to one of the visited sites. But although anonymous, these profiles have been the subject of some concerns regarding privacy.

Cookies common problems.

Despite the benefits of cookies in browsers, they can also be harmful if not used correctly. Below is a list of the most common problems:

People share computers and devices:

Any device that is shared in a public area, and several computers used in an office environment or in a house, are used and shared by many people. Let’s say you use a public computer (in a bookstore, a cybercafe, etc.) to compare something from an online store. This store will leave a cookie on the computer, and someone may later try to buy something in the store using your account. The stores on the Internet usually give great notices about this problem so that care is taken in making purchases from certain places, even so, there may be mistakes. To check if someone has visited a site on a public machine before you, you can check it by viewing the history of the URLs, which will show a list of visits to that site.

Some websites notify the users about the uses of browser’s cookies, other websites force us to accept them in order to continue using the service – that is why they are obliged to inform us about the cookies, although there are ways to deactivate and block them.

Multiple devices

People often use more than one computer during the day. For example, I have a computer in the office, a computer at home, my phone and also an Ipad. Unless the site would be specifically engineered to solve the problem, I will have like 4 or more unique cookie files on all the devices. Any site that I visit from all the devices will track me as a different user. It can be annoying to set preferences with all the devices. Again, a site that allows registration and stores preferences centrally may make it easy for me to have the same account on all of them, but the site developers must plan for this when designing the site. If you visit the history URL demonstrated in the previous section from one machine and then try it again from another, you will find that your history lists are different. This is because the server created two IDs for you, one on each device.

If you do not want data about you to be stored on computers, you can delete them in different ways depending on the browser. Here is list of step on how to delete the website cookies in different browsers:

Google:

On your computer, open Chrome.
At the top right, click More or the 3 dots icon.
Click More tools and then Clear browsing data.
At the top, choose a time range. To delete everything, select All time or the option need it.
Next to “Cookies and other site data” and “Cached images and files,” check the boxes.
Click on Clear data.

Edge:

On your computer, open Edge.
At the top right, click the Hub icon (three horizontal lines at the top bar in front of a star).
Select the History menu option.
Click Clear history.
Check the following boxes: “Cookies and saved website data” and “Cached data and files”.
Click on Clear.

Mozilla FireFox:

On your computer, open Mozilla FireFox.
Click on the menu button in the upper right corner.
Select Options.
In the Privacy section, click on Clear your recent history.
From the drop-down menu next to Time range to clear, select Everything you need.
Click on Clear Now.

Safari on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch:

On your device, go to settings.
Tab on Safari.
Tab on advanced.
Tab on Website Data.
Tab Remove All Website Data.

As we have seen as users, we need to understand how the cookies work to protect our information in different devices, we can know if the website is using cookies when a notification appears explaining the use of cookies, also when the website has a car to store items, is common to uses cookies to make this features work or more information can be found in the privacy policy of the website.

Web Browser’s Cookies are very important tools for website development because they are great data matrix with information about users. Thanks to them, we can also improve the user experience in our web service or direct advertising to a specific group of potential clients.

Reference

Do you remember the Gaussian Blur effect in Adobe Photoshop?

Juan Abreu Rodríguez February 28, 2025

Felipe Mahón [Project #27]

Juan Abreu Rodríguez May 2, 2023

Package Information:
-Awesome Logo Design
-Business Card Design
-Letterhead Design
-3D Mockups

Vieta Fit Nutrition [Project #26]

Juan Abreu Rodríguez February 8, 2022

Package Information:
-Awesome Logo Design
-Business Card Design
-Letterhead Design
-3D Mockups

The post How Browser Cookies Helps You and What Are They For? appeared first on CidCity Arts+Designs.

The Importance of SSL Certificates in Websites

Juan Abreu Rodríguez — Fri, 12 Apr 2019 10:35:08 +0000

The Importance of SSL Certificates in Websites

April 12, 2019
Updated on August 20, 2021

Juan Abreu Rodríguez

Author

SSL certificates help to provide safety to the visitor of websites, it is a way to tell your customers that the site is genuine, authentic, and reliable to enter personal data. The acronym SSL responds to the terms (Secure Socket Layer), which is a security protocol that makes your data travel in a complete and secure way, the transmission of data between a server and a web user, and in feedback, it is fully encrypted.

All this leads us to understand that the technology provided by an SSL certificate is the secure transmission of information through the Internet. In order to use an SSL certificate, on your website, it is very important that the Internet server (host) you hired brings SSL support.

SSL certificates are important because to protect credit card transactions, data transfers, and logins, and more recently, it is becoming the standard for protecting social media browsing (GlobalSign, 2020).

How do SSL Certificates works?

Let’s start knowing that your computer communicate with a server when you reach a certain website and to guarantee the connection a protocol or language would be required. The most used protocol is HTTP that stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol and you will see it at the beginning of almost all the web address in the World Wide Web.

It is important to know that all the communication between the computer and the website would be sent in clear text, so all the information that is exchanged between your computer and that server including any data that you type on the website would be transferred over the public internet and because it was transported in clear text, your information is vulnerable to anybody who wanted, like hackers.

This is a big concern when we talk about data security, this is how HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) was created and becomes our hero when we are communicating with servers and is HTTP with a security feature that encrypts the data that is being exchanged between computers and servers, making the information impossible to read using encryption algorithms to scramble the data that is being transferred.

HTTPS secure the information exchanged between devices and servers using SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) a protocol that ensures security on the internet, so when a computer connects to a website that is using SSL your browser going to ask the website to identify itself, so the web server will send a copy of its SSL Certificate to your browser, this certificate is a small digital document used to authenticate the identity of a website, basically is used to let your computer know that the website your visiting is trustworthy, so your browser will check to make sure that the information received is a trust certificate and if it does, a message will be sent to let the server know that the SSL section can proceed with the transmission of encrypted data.

By having a reliable SSL certificate, our data would be encrypted, at which point we can ensure that nobody can read its content. All this leads us to understand that the technology provided by an SSL certificate is the secure transmission of information through the Internet.

How to identify that a website is secure?

When you open a link or a website, the browser automatically change the standard HTTP to HTTPS, telling the browser that the connection between the server and browser must be secured using SSL.

Some browsers activate a padlock showing you that the browser connection to the server is now secure, when the padlock is broken or with a red color means that the page does not use SSL and might not be secure.

How is SSL technology used in practice in e-commerce transactions, online work processes, and online services?

Protect transactions made with bank cards.
Offer online protection to access to the system, confidential information transmitted through web forms or certain protected areas of web pages.
Protect webmail and applications such as web access to Outlook or Exchange servers and Office Communications.
Protect work processes and virtualization of applications such as Citrix Delivery platforms or cloud computing platforms.
Protect the connection between a mail client such as Microsoft Outlook and a mail server such as Microsoft Exchange.
Protect the transfer of files over HTTPS and FTP services, such as the updates of new pages by a website owner or the transmission of heavy files.
Protect access and activity in control panels such as Parallels or cPanel among others.
Protect intranet traffic such as internal networks, file sharing, extranets or database connections.
Protect access to networks and any other network traffic with SSL VPNs such as VPN access servers or applications such as Citrix Access Gateway.

All these applications have some points in common:

It is necessary to protect the confidentiality of the data transmitted through the Internet or any other network since nobody wants the information of your credit card, your account, your passwords or your personal data exposed on the Net.

It is necessary to guarantee the integrity of this data to avoid that once the credit card information has been sent and the amount has been confirmed, a hacker who has been able to intercept the information cannot change the amount charged and divert the money.

The company must guarantee to its clients or users of its extranet the authenticity of its identity and eliminate any doubt that a third party is supplanting it.

The organization must comply with regional, national and international regulations regarding privacy, security, and data integrity.

We need to know that a lot of websites are using HTTPS by default, regardless if sensitive data is going to be exchanged or not. Also, important browsers as Google and Bing are flagging websites as “not secure” if they are not SSL protected and these websites would be penalized in the browsers search rankings.

To sum up, the benefits of activating SSL certificates for your business or personal websites are incredible, and some web hosting providers have made installing them easy and quick. Don’t miss taking full advantage of the HTTPS revolution, add an extra layer of security for your website visitors and gain their trust (Nikolov, 2018).

SSL certificates are important for your website because ensure and protect your visitor’s data and also can help you to reach the top in the web browsers rankings.

The post The Importance of SSL Certificates in Websites appeared first on CidCity Arts+Designs.

Web Development - CidCity Arts+Designs

5 WordPress Plugin Types That Are Essential for Your Website

5 WordPress Plugin Types That Are Essential for Your Website

Juan Abreu Rodríguez

Force to SSL Plugins

Backup Plugins

Caching Plugins

Why is important to have a cache plugin on your website?

Hide Login Plugins

SEO Plugins

Reference

Recent Posts

How Browser Cookies Helps You and What Are They For?

How Browser Cookies Helps You and What Are They For?

Juan Abreu Rodríguez

What is the idea of the browser cookies?

Types of browser cookies

Wrong ideas of web browser cookies

Cookies common problems.

People share computers and devices:

Multiple devices

Google:

Edge:

Mozilla FireFox:

Safari on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch:

Reference

Recent Posts

The Importance of SSL Certificates in Websites

The Importance of SSL Certificates in Websites

Juan Abreu Rodríguez

How do SSL Certificates works?

How to identify that a website is secure?

How is SSL technology used in practice in e-commerce transactions, online work processes, and online services?

Reference

Recent Posts