WordPress trends, technical debt, headers, design variables, marketing challenges, on-page SEO, WikiPortraits, X outage and Gabagool. When I was at WordCamp US in September 2022, I remember asking the folks from Elegant Themes about the pending Divi 5. They made a big bet on rebuilding everything from the ground up and this meant relatively few new features for more than two years. Now Divi 5 is nearing the finish line and major new features are getting announced almost every week. It will likely still be several months before I’m ready to migrate sites to Divi 5, but I’m started to get really excited about working in a shiny new tool. Check out all of the stories below and catch up on the news of the week.

• The Top WordPress Trends of 2025
• WordPress Security Threat Update (4 Shocking Trends in 2025)
• WordPress Security Research Series: WordPress Security Architecture
• Introducing WPConsent – WordPress Privacy Compliance and Cookie Management Made Easy
• Managing Technical Debt as a WordPress Freelancer
• How To Improve Speed And Performance For A WordPress Site
• WordPress Backup Plugin Vulnerability Affects 5+ Million Websites
• State of WordPress Security In 2025
• WordPress Page Builder Performance (In the Real World)

• How to Make a High Converting Website in 2025
• The 10 biggest marketing challenges have nothing to do with AI
• I tried out a bunch of the AI assistants. Here’s what you need to know about each one
• The Future Of Content Distribution: Leveraging Multi-Channel Strategies For Maximum Reach
• Breadcrumbs Are Dead in Web Design
• What is a “Website Care Plan” and What’s Included?

• On-Page SEO Checklist (Every Task For New & Existing Pages)
• Deep SEO: The Potential Impact Of AI Mode And Deep Search Models
• Ask An SEO: How Can You Distinguish Yourself In This Era Of AI Search Engines?
• How To Justify And Make A Business Case For SEO Budgets
• Google Publishes New Robots.txt Explainer
• The Death of Google Search: Is the Search Engine on Its Last Legs?
• Google Search History Can Now Power Gemini AI Answers
• Agentic AI In SEO: AI Agents & Workflows For Ideation (Part 1)

• Exciting New Tools for Designers, March 2025
• Okay, the Hyundai logo’s secret meaning has genuinely surprised me
• OpenAI says it has trained an AI that’s ‘really good’ at creative writing
• WikiPortraits is On a Mission to Fix Bad Wikipedia Celebrity Portraits
• Graphic designers need to know about these typographical optical illusions
• Why Does Unsplash Need Two Search Bars? Let’s Talk About It
• The Texas Rangers’ raunchy design fail is an unexpected hit with fans
• Crayola’s nostalgic limited edition packs bring back ‘lost’ colours retired since 1990 – plus a Million Crayon Giveaway

• Pinterest to Train AI Models on User Content
• Bluesky adds 3-minute video uploads and inbox management features
• At SXSW, Bluesky CEO Jay Graber pokes fun at Mark Zuckerberg with Latin phrase T-shirt
• Elon Musk says a ‘massive cyberattack’ is to blame for X being down
• Elon Musk Blames X Outage on ‘Massive Cyberattack’
• Bluesky Wants to Keep Creeps Out of Your DMs
• A Facebook Insider’s Exposé Alleges Bad Behavior at the Top
• You May See an AI Version of Yourself as an Instagram Post: Here’s How to Turn It Off

Each week we’ll share a meme that we find thought provoking or just plain funny.

• We Threw an Ice Cream Party With Ninja’s Glorious New Soft Serve Machine
  ***** Get Ninja Swirl by CREAMi Ice Cream and Soft Serve Maker at Amazon *****
• How Capicola Became Gabagool: The Italian New Jersey Accent, Explained
• If You Aren’t Drinking Green Tea, You’re Missing Out on These 8 Benefits

If you see some important news that you feel we should share with our readers, please let us know and we’ll consider including it in our next post.