WordPress too complex, semantic lists, home page, dark SEO, AI headshots, nightmare fuel, Reddit and waffles. These days it seems that almost every story involves AI in some way and most every new tool includes some sort of AI. I definitely use it, though I probably don’t use it as much as others. Some say AI will eliminate the need for someone to build your Web site. I disagree. While it can do many things well and can speed up the process, a person is needed to either harness the AI power or to fill in the gaps where AI isn’t perfect. Check out all of this week’s news, including a lot about AI, in the stories below.

For those of you in the world of Web design, I invite you to join our new Divi Unleashed Facebook group.

• Is WordPress Too Complex For Most Sites?
• Moving from WordPress to Astro/Payload
• I didn’t think this site would get much attention ever, let alone a lot so fast
• The 40% Myth: They say WordPress powers 40% of all websites. We hit the streets of real cities to find out.
• The checks that make or break your next website migration
• 800,000 WordPress Sites Affected by Arbitrary File Read Vulnerability in Smart Slider 3 WordPress Plugin
• WordPress 7.0 RC1 Ships Despite Core Committer Concerns Over Release Readiness
• WordPress Is Colliding With AI — and Nobody Had ‘None’ on Their Bingo Card
• WordPress.com Gives AI Agents Access to Create, Edit and Manage Content via MCP
• Elementor Launches Angie, a Free AI Plugin for Building Custom WordPress Functionality
• Ask Joost: AI-powered answers from my blog
• MapSwap for The Events Calendar

• The Death of the Front Door: Why the “Home Page” is a Legacy Pattern
• Your Content Marketing Survival Plan: Abandon the Attention Economy
• Stop Designing for Delighted Users (and Start Designing for Cognitive Strain)
• Automated traffic is growing 8x faster than human traffic: Report
• How to use first-party data to find high-impact content ideas

• The SEO Skills Gap: Why Technical Expertise Alone Won’t Cut It Anymore
• From SEO And CRO To Agentic AI Optimization (AAIO): Why Your Website Needs To Speak To Machines
• Google Is Using AI to Modify Search Headlines, and It’s Not Going Well
• How AI-generated content performs in Google Search: A 16-month experiment
• Why zero-click search doesn’t mean zero influence
• Why ‘search everywhere’ is the new reality for SEO
• Research: “You Are An Expert” Prompts Can Damage Factual Accuracy
• Google Responds To Error That Causes Old Branding To Persist In SERPs
• Bing Webmaster Tools now links AI queries to cited pages
• AI citations favor listicles, articles, product pages: Study
• SEO’s biggest threat in 2026? Your own organization
• Half Your Traffic Left. The SEO Industry Sent Thoughts and Frameworks
• Google Adds AI & Bot Labels To Forum, Q&A Structured Data
• How to write for AI search: A playbook for machine-readable content
• How schema markup fits into AI search — without the hype
• How to optimize influencer content for search everywhere
• Is AI Content Bad for SEO? No, and It Never Will Be (7 Reasons)
• Your GEO Strategy Might Be Destroying Your SEO
• First, Dark Social. Now, Dark SEO.
• “Dark AI” and What Actually Drives AEO Influence
• Google updates structured data for forum and Q&A content
• Why Google’s New “Google-Agent” Is The Biggest Mindset Shift In SEO History
• YouTube test replaces video titles with AI summaries
• Stop chasing Reddit and Wikipedia: What actually drives AI recommendations
• If your local rankings are off, your map pin may be the reason
• TurboQuant Has The Potential To Fundamentally Change How Search (And AI) Works
• Why New Google-Agent May Be A Pivot Related To OpenClaw Trend
• The Death Of The Static GBP: Why Dynamic Profiles Are The New Local Ranking Factor

• How to get free AI headshots that don’t look fake – with Nano Banana 2
  If anyone tries this, I’m really curious to hear about your results. I’m definitely going to give it a try in the near future.
• ‘Claude, Resize These Photos’ – Anthropic’s Agentic AI Will Run Photoshop For You
• Artist shares how he created Penguin Random House’s Playful Penguins campaign
• The Photographer Capturing the South From Waffle House Booths
• Autodesk’s new AI tools for Maya and 3ds Max actually look useful – here’s why
• Warburtons’ new packaging designs dial up the orange
• ‘Restoring’ Old Photos With AI Is a Fundamentally Broken Concept
• After Over 20 Years of Efforts, DNG Is Now the Official RAW Image Standard
• Audacity Review: A Free Audio Editor That Nails the Basics
• This desktop laser might just be the easiest laser engraver to get started with
• xTool just made a mini merchandise factory for your home
• Adobe’s Turntable turns 2D images into 3D views inside Illustrator, saving hours of work
• ON1 Restore AI Turns Old Family Photos into Grotesque Nightmare Fuel
  

• Photographers Can Now Reorder Their Pictures on an Instagram Carousel Post
• Meta and YouTube Lose Landmark Social-Media Addiction Trial
• Reddit Intensifies Bot Crackdown, Fishy Accounts Must Now Prove They’re Human
• Wikipedia Bans Use Of AI-Generated Content
• Elon Musk loses big in court; X boycott perfectly legal
• Social media design is finally facing the reckoning it deserves

• Why Do Different Cultures Drink Alcohol Out of Shoes?
• The Wondrous History of the Waffle
• Open Your Mind to This Polarizing Invasive Herb
• For Enslaved Cooks, Persimmon Beer Combined Ingenuity and Joy
• The Ancient Art of Harvesting Fruit in the Desert

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.