WordPress in decline?, Divi 5 Variable Generator, GoDaddy disaster, Ask Jeeves, AI pop song, diVine and state pies. Seeing the news about Ask Jeeves shutting down made me reminisce about the wild world of search in the 90s. Google didn’t even exist and there were so many choices for search and each seemed to be better for a specific purpose. While we still have a lot of choices now, the vast majority of searches go through Google. Of course there was a lot more in this week’s news so check out all the stories below.

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

• Welcoming Bluehost as a 2026 Global Partner 🥳
• FluentCart 1.3.25 smoothing the seams
• Matt Mullenweg thinks WordPress is in decline. He may be right
• Federal Judge Orders Matt Mullenweg to Explain Missing Messages in WP Engine Dispute
• Automattic Engineers Reimagine wp-admin as a Desktop OS — and Nick Hamze’s Already Built an App Store for It
• Austin Ginder Reports Fourth Plugin Backdoor in a Month, Unveils WP Beacon
• Woo Ships WooCommerce Subscriptions Health Check Tool Following Disclosure of Four Renewal Bugs
• WordPress.org Closes Quick Page/Post Redirect Plugin After Author Operated Years-Long Backdoor
• Can you really fit 50 sites on a $15 server? No, you can’t, you can fit 94 (but I decided on 60)
• Announcing: The Guild

• Does AI Really Have Emotions? This Research May Change Your Mind.
• One thing I wish I’d known: “work hard, learn fast and have fun”
• The AI Skills Salary Premium
• GoDaddy Transferred A Domain By Mistake And Refused To Fix It
  This is an absolutely horrifying story. I’ve tried very hard to help a client recover their domain after the person who “owned” it had died. Even with cooperation of the deceased’s family, it was impossible. To read this story about how easily GoDaddy gave a domain away makes me want to move anything on GoDaddy to somewhere else.
• The framing gap: Why AI can’t position your brand
• Claude AI Can Orchestrate Creative Workflows Across Adobe Apps
• How Brands Block AI Crawlers & Then Pay To Get Seen: The Protection Paradox
• Agents can now create Cloudflare accounts, buy domains, and deploy
• Google Launches AI Max For Shopping and Travel Campaigns
• AI Gives You The Vocabulary. It Doesn’t Give You The Expertise
• AI sees your brand as math, not messaging
• What blog posts should you write to be mentioned in ChatGPT?
• How AI models ‘understand’ your brand
• Reddit marketing for SaaS: Insights from 117 brands
• 7 Tools Worth a Look in 2026
• How To Run A Webinar Program That Actually Drives ROI
• Your Website Is A Source, Not A Megaphone

• Bing Webmaster Tools teases new AI reporting updates
• 7 lessons from moving from agency to in-house SEO
• Cultural SEO: A practical framework for Spanish markets in AI search
• APAC Search Strategy Goes Beyond Google & Baidu
• Why more content is no longer a reliable way to grow SEO
• SEO Is Filed Under Marketing — That’s The Whole Problem
• Comparison Of AI Citation Patterns Offers Strategic SEO Insights
• Can a fake brand win in AI search? New experiment says yes
• Is there still a long-term game for SEO in AI search?
• Why tracking parameters in internal links hurt your SEO and how to fix them
• 4 signals that now define visibility in AI search
• Searchers just want you to be helpful
• AI Search Clicks Often Go To Local Domains: Report
• Microsoft Says Bing Reached 1B Monthly Active Users
• Your AI Visibility Tracker Is Quietly Breaking Your Analytics And Your Strategy
• Google Search Revenue Grew 19% In Q1, Pichai Cites AI
• 17 Content Types to Survive Google’s Zero-Click Future
• From paid clicks to answer equity: Your new 2026 search strategy
• From links to brand signals: The new SEO authority model
• Google AI Mode In Chrome Isn’t Killing SEO; It’s Exposing Weak SEO
• How to build SEO agent skills that actually work
• A blueprint for semantic programmatic SEO
• Google Advises Using AI In Best Possible Way For AI Search
• Ask Jeeves Is Gone After Nearly 30 Years Of Search
• OG Conversational Search Engine Ask.com Has Answered Its Last Question
• Google’s Preferred Sources Is Now A Global SEO Signal

• I tested ChatGPT Images 2.0 vs. Gemini Nano Banana to see which is better – this model wins
• Canva’s New AI-Powered Tool Caught Swapping ‘Palestine’ for ‘Ukraine’
• Vividon’s New Photoshop Plugin Uses AI to Change Photo Lighting
• DJI Osmo Action 6 Review: A Creator-Friendly Action Cam That Shoots It All
  ***** Get Osmo Action 6 Standard Combo at Amazon *****
• Why Xbox’s new logo feels instantly nostalgic
• I used Photoshop’s new AI tool to rotate objects in 3D, and it’s pure magic
• I Made a Kitschy Pop Song With AI. It’s Fast, Easy, and Completely Empty

• YouTube testing new search experience, Ask YouTube
• Is Facebook adding Gen Z phrases to your shared posts? You’re not alone, bestie. Here’s what’s happening.
• A Decade Later, Vine Is Back as ‘diVine.’ In the TikTok Era, Will Anyone Care?
• Netflix’s TikTok-like vertical feed is finally here
• Meta Says it Lost 20 Million Users at the Beginning of the Year
• New Instagram Policies Target Reposted Content
• I’m cautiously excited for the return of Vine
• Meta Threatens to Shut Down Its Apps in New Mexico Over Child Safety Court Case
• Think Before You Tap: Don’t Fall for These 9 Viral Social Media Scams

• Who Invented Eggs Benedict–a Traitor, a Pope, or a Hungover Dude?
• The Fantastic, Fading Retro Diners of Hong Kong
• 8 School Lunch Foods That Ruled the Cafeteria in the 2000s
• The Singaporean Baker Inventing a Pie for Every American State

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.