WordPress 7.1.3, Components & Slots, context engineering, link building strategies, JPEG XL, open source Adobe clones, Instagram safety risks and poison candy myths. The last few days have been a challenge for me. I was all set for a road trip. Before I even got started, a tire died. The next day, the tiny piece that holds up my car window broke. In both situations, I reached out for help and friends really stepped up so that the issues could be resolved quickly. Mainly it was knowing the right contacts to call and they delivered. The same can often be true when I’m stuck with a Web site issue. Knowing who to ask about it can often lead to a quick solution. And that could be AI these days. Check out all of this week’s news 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.

• WP EasyCart 6.0 Is Here. Time to Take Another Look.
• Infinite Uploads 3.4 Lets AI Agents Manage Your WordPress Media Library
• Pie Calendar 1.5.0: Advanced Recurrence Rules
• WordPress Releases Canonical MCP Adapter Plugin
• WordPress 7.1.3 Fixes 7 Vulnerabilities And 1 Critical Flaw
• FluentCart 1.7.1 – Airwallex payments and builder reviews
• Cybersecurity Imperatives Will Demand AI Math
• Jetpack 16.3 WordPress Plugin Update Is A Winner
• Mary Hubbard Calls on Hosting and Plugin Companies to Fund WordPress Security Program
• Judge Says He’s Leaning Toward Denying WP Engine’s Bid to Sanction Automattic Over Disappearing Messages
• Automattic Applies for Closed .wordpress Domain in ICANN’s First Application Round Since 2012
• Automattic Wants .wordpress. It Doesn’t Own WordPress.
• Weglot Disrupts Itself With an AI-Native Rebuild, Launches 2.0 on WordPress
• WordPress 7.1.3 Patches Seven Vulnerabilities as Bug Bounty Payouts Top $90,000 in 90 Days
• WPConsent Makes Privacy Compliance Easy for WordPress without High Costs

• The Pathetic State of Content Marketing: A Plea
• Want lasting AI brand visibility? Stop looking for hacks
• Writing blog posts while walking the dog
• The keys to the Internet change on October 11. Are you ready?
• Trump’s SI Rebrand Results in Flurry of .SI Domain Registrations
• Stop letting AI make your marketing decisions
• Context engineering: How to prevent AI workflows from degrading
• Your boss is nervous about AI, too

• How to build topic clusters for SEO and AI search
• AI usage surges 6X for local search, fragmenting the digital ecosystem
• Google Is Fighting SERP Tracking. AI Agents May Make It Worse
• Google Search Console performance report filter allows selection of multiple countries
• Google shares preferred source follower data via email
• Reddit for organic and AI search: 7 ways to build visibility
• How product thinking can make you a better SEO
• The Business Case For SEO Is Changing; Budget Justifications Should Too
• AI Search Is Changing Your Website’s Job, Here’s How To Adapt
• Using AI To Assist With SEO Work, Not Replace The Worker
• 57% of beauty consumers don’t start with Google Search
• Breaking into SEO starts with creating your own opportunities
• Link Building Strategies for 2027: What to Keep and Cut
• Do exact match domains have value in 2027?
• How to plan 2027 when traffic is down and AI won’t attribute
• AI Overviews Have Spread To Most Big-Brand Searches
• Claude’s New Rules Target Fake Sources Built To Sway AI Answers
• Google Now Has The Math To Rank Without An Index, And The Results Page Does Not Survive It
• I Don’t Trust Google’s AI Overviews, So I Found 6 Ways to Fix Them
• What Google AI Mode follow-up questions reveal about your content
• Google Discover To Undergo Dramatic Changes

• Shipping JPEG XL in Chrome
• Aftershoot’s Free RAW Editor, Photon, Teaches You How To Edit Photos
• Jaguar’s controversial rebrand finally makes sense with the unveiling of the bold Type 01
• “Software is over”: Bold AI developer takes aim at Adobe with open source clones
• Someone Rebuilt Free, Open-Source Versions of Photoshop, Premiere, and Lightroom Using AI
• Fanta’s AI slop Halloween advert is a real horror show
• No, I Don’t Want to Restyle My Photo With AI
• Someone just rebuilt Adobe Creative Cloud with AI – then gave it away for free
• The Coca-Cola rebrand is still causing confusion three months on
• This viral packaging plays on a meme the brand ignored for decades

• UK Investigates Instagram’s ‘Instants’ Over Safety Risks of Disappearing Photos
• Instagram Edits Now Lets You Make Custom Photo and Video Carousels
• Meta Tests Making Instagram and Facebook Open to Full-Screen Vertical Video Feeds

• Keurig’s New Alta System Could Signal the End for the Disposable K-Cup
• Taste the Globe With Recipes From New York’s All-Grandma Kitchen Crew
• Why Halloween’s ‘Poison Candy’ Myth Endures

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.