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Talking WordPress Hosting & Performance – An Interview with WP Engine’s Austin Gunter

Max Spiker — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 22:11:31 +0000

In 2011 I learned that a new managed hosting company – WP Engine – had just raised $1.2 Million from some very high profile investors including Eric Ries. At the time what really caught my attention was that one of the investors was Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com.

That piqued my curiosity and I looked into them. Months later, after reading a bunch of good reviews about them, I switched our highest traffic site to them and have been really impressed with how well they’ve worked out. Ive been recommending WP Engine ever since.

In January of this year, I had a chance to meet and spend some time with Austin Gunter and Ben Metcalfe while we were all in Las Vegas for ASW13. I’ve been curious about what really makes WP Engine run as well as it does – especially considering the insane growth and scaling issues that they’ve had to deal with (and overcome) – I thought it’d be a cool to interview Austin about some of the more interesting aspects of what makes WP Engine run on all cylinders…

1. Max: So we’ve heard again and again how much you guys at WP Engine are obsessed with speed + performance + security. What does WP Engine do that no other host does when it comes to going above and beyond to optimize website performance? Feel free to get technical (& all nerdy) on me here.

Austin: The trick to understanding speed is to understand that what may be “fast” at normal levels of traffic, isn’t always fast at scale. When Ben Metcalfe and Jason Cohen developed the technology for WP Engine, they had to look not just what would happen when WordPress sites were getting thousands of hits a day, but thousands of hits an hour, and thousands of hits a minute. Statistically speaking, when you have thousands of hits a day, there is that occurrence that happens .1% of the time that you can basically ignore. But when you have thousands of visitors a minute, all of a sudden, those .1% occurances get downright common and you have to take them into account when developing the technology.

For example, there’s Apache server technology is totally serviceable for everyday hosting situations. I could stick a single WordPress site on Apache and be able to handle a few thousand visitors each day because Apache can run a decent amount of concurrent requests of the same site content. I could do a lot of things to optimize my site that would stretch the performance of Apache, but there will always be a bottleneck with Apache. Apache will eventually run out of threads to serve requests, and crash under a certain level of traffic. At which point, you have to start looking for new solutions to scale that site speed.

That’s why you need to use something like Nginx, which is capable of serving hundreds of simultaneous requests of the same WordPress content at the same time. I wrote about how nginx and apache are different on WP Force. Basically, Nginx was developed to solve the C10k problem, or the “10,000 concurrent connections” problem. WordPress is seeing production usage where content will make the front page of Reddit or The Huffington Post and receive that many visitors in a short period of time, so WP Engine, from its inception, was tasked with solving this hosting challenge. We knew that we were going to have the opportunity to host some of the most popular, and premiere WordPress installations on the internet, so we had to make sure our technology could stand up to their traffic levels.

(NOTE: It’s important to say that I’m speaking in very general terms to establish a technological foundation. A lot of what WP Engine does on the technology side is kept secret, and I’ve intentionally left out some of those technical bits. Sorry ;-))

Part of the way WP Engine can scale to the incredible levels that we have with a number of our clients, is our product “Evercache.” It’s our secret sauce that takes advantage of the latest server technology, and adds multiple caching layers in the hosting stack so that WP Engine’s ability to cache is not limited at the plugin level. You might say at WP Engine, “it’s caching all the way down.” And of course, we added a hand-tuned CDN to reduce latency, and make sure that your content is scalable from anywhere on the globe.

When it comes to security, many of those things are also shrouded in mystery because the best security is redundant and inventive. Since hackers are a smart bunch, we have to keep every possible advantage to ourselves as we make sure we always stay a few steps ahead of them. Part of what we’ve done on the security side is make sure that, as a company, WP Engine is financially incentivized to keep your WordPress site secure. We guarantee your site security, and if something should go wrong, we take care of the costs associated with the cleanup.

We take that guarantee seriously, and are the only host which offers it. The guarantee means you can’t FTP or SSH into your server at WP Engine, because that would put your site at unnecessary risk. For more security, and if you ask nicely, we can even lock down your ability to write to the filesystem, except during development windows. Most of our enterprise and agency customers opt for this because it means there is zero opportunity to inject malicious code into your site most of the time.

2. Max: What’s do you think is the biggest mistake people make when they weigh hosts and then pick a provider? What hard statistic can you point to that makes this so?

In the past, price has been the biggest factor hosting companies have used to differentiate themselves from one another. And with the price of technology always dropping, it makes sense that the same hosting from 5 years ago should be dirt cheap for you to get your hands on, and that holds true.

You CAN get obsolete shared hosting from any number of companies for less than $10 every month. That’s an incredibly cheap price, and you get exactly what you pay for!

If you think about the cost of an hour of a single support tech’s time, you’re not even covering it with a sub-$10 monthly fee. And we haven’t even started talking about server technology or developer features for a WordPress platform. If you do simple math, you realize that a hosting company that undercharges for their hosting will have to make their money in volume, which means they have to fit as many customers as possible onto a server, and then cut corners on support.

I’m not sure there’s a hard statistic with this to point to, other than the size of The Endurance Group, which is a holding company that owns dozens of well-known hosting companies. The Endurance group is a billion-dollar company that competes with GoDaddy for its customers, and for level of service as well.

Price of hosting should actually be an indicator of the quality of technology, and the quality of customer experience and technical support is. A more expensive host can afford to hire WordPress support specialists who can spend time with each support issue. And a more expensive host can invest in developer tools and features that improve your customer experience. So with that in mind, I’d look for what real customers are actually saying about a hosting company on Twitter or on their blogs. People share and write about their experiences with companies on social media, so you can spend an hour researching a hosting company to find out everything you need to know, good and bad.

Frankly, there are so many people making money with WordPress, that the savvy developers, designers, and “consultants” aren’t concerned about saving money on hosting, they’re looking for the host that can make more money for them, either because of tools that save them time, or faster page load speed, or support that they can rely on, rather than have to do everything themselves.

3. Max: Thanks for answering my questions in such detail. I definitely have some new perspectives that I never even thought about before. To round this out and to end on a lighter and less-nerdy note: Given your leadership role with WP Engine – what other companies do you admire or try to model WP Engine after? Which CEO(s) and why?

I love the way that the teams at Buffer and SEOmoz have built their content blogs. They post tons of valuable content that is congruent with the vision and purpose of their companies, but isn’t just about marketing their product. Rather, they do their users a SECOND service by providing them with interesting, informative, and useful content on a consistent basis. A great content blog is a great way to develop customer trust, and it also does increase inbound traffic, but in an organic, “win-win” manner.

I love how Sarah Lacy is running PandoDaily, with a focus on the long-term game of producing long-form journalistic pieces in blog format, and she is railing against the way that many publishers (I won’t name names, but there’s a big site that rhymes with MechGrunch) are trying to squeeze content producers and site designs to optimize for pageviews, at the cost of ruining long-form content. I think Sarah is a great example of “fighting the good fight” in her industry, but also running a successful business. I hope that WP Engine is “fighting the good fight” in a similar way. Sarah sets a high bar for quality for her writers and herself, which challenges other content sites to up their game as well. At the end of the day, I look up to entrepreneurs who focus on “quality over quantity,” and am grateful to work for a company that does that very thing.

Max: Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. If anyone wants to check out Austin’s blog check it here or follow him on Twitter – or if you want to see for yourself how much faster your site would be on WP Engine run your URL through their free site speed test or check out their hosting plans.

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Why I Switched from Kayak to Google Flight Search

Max Spiker — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 15:47:58 +0000

I’ve have been using Kayak for flight searches for about 7 years now. For a long time they were the best aggregate flight search, especially for domestic flights.

Before Kayak came around, you either had to search individual airlines or sites like Orbitz and Travelocity, which charged booking fees (around $6 per booking on top of the flight price).

Kayak pioneered the practice of aggregating flight prices without charging booking fees, making their money through advertising instead. They offered advanced search options that were not available anywhere else: you could filter by individual flight legs, narrow down to specific times of day, and see wifi options. I loved Kayak and used their flight search religiously for 90% of my bookings over the years.

A few years later Hipmunk launched, but aside from their cute mascot and an innovative ”sort by agony“ feature, there wasn’t enough there to warrant a serious switch. Most of their results were actually identical to Kayak’s. There was also FareCast which told you whether flight prices were going to rise or fall in the near future. Farecast was acquired by Microsoft and was rolled into Bing Search in 2008. Kayak has since implemented a similar fare-prediction feature for some of its searches.

Then in 2010 a bombshell dropped, but I think few people failed to notice the implications. Google bought ITA Software, the company that powers all the other websites’ flights searches. Google now owned the source of all flight search data - the trough everyone else was, and still is, feeding from. It was just a matter of time before they started to make serious moves into the flight search space.

#1 Reason Google Flight Search is Better: Speed

This is the primary reason I have now switched over to almost exclusively using Google Flight Search and away from Kayak. I can flip through consecutive days and new flight prices pop up on the screen instantly – if I am looking for the cheapest day to fly to LAX in the next month I can find flight prices for every day that month in less than a minute.

The search speed blows away Kayak’s by a long shot.

Caveat: it does take a little while to get used to some of the controls. For example, ” the “one-way, roundtrip” selector is not in a very intuitive place, and selecting multiple airports option isn’t as obvious.

Aside from those few caveats, however, Google Flight Search has become my search tool of choice. Not only is it faster, but it has also found airfares that were about $10-20 cheaper than what Kayak has returned on the last few airfare searches that I ran.

Google’s Dominant Marketing Position

Earlier today I ran a normal Google search for “Miami to Chattanooga” and this is what I saw:

Since almost everyone uses Google to look for information, Google can obviously leverage their enormous market position into any vertical they want. And this is exactly what they’re doing with flight search. Now there’s no need to go to an intermediary like Kayak, they can just serve up flight prices right at the point of Google search.

What’s more is if you look at the “next/previous” buttons in the date field, you can very quickly see what days are the cheapest to fly (this is where ITA’s software really helps them out) – all without leaving the search page.

Google’s Flight Explorer

Adioso has been trying to launch a good open ended flight search tool for years – but their execution has been buggy to say the least (though lately they have really improved their website).

Google recently created such a tool - Google Flight Explore. It gives you a pretty effective way to run open ended searches. If you want to get away for the weekend, you can see what cities you can fly to and at what prices – pretty quickly and easily.

The Future of Kayak

Kayak has had years to amass a great brand so I’m not too worried about them. I doubt they will go away anytime soon – just as Orbitz and Travelocity are still around (even though I never use them). But if I was Kayak (or Himpunk for that matter), I would be very worried about my company’s future.

Note: I myself have been wanting to launch a travel startup for years but I just can’t find a unique enough angle or a way to penetrate the market in any effective way so in some ways I feel the pain of being in this space.

graphic inspiration / credit: Nicola Armellini via Dribbble

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Hosting Affiliate Programs: My Peculiar Experiences with WP Engine & HostGator

Max Spiker — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 23:12:56 +0000

Over the past several years I’ve derived some of my income from testing out and recommending web hosting companies that I have ended up liking and using myself. And I’ve tried a ton of hosts: WP Engine, HostGator, A Small Orange, Pair, VPS.net, Zippy Kid, Bluehost, Dreamhost, Godaddy, Namecheap, etc.

Each one of the above hosts has an affiliate program where if someone signs up through my link, I get paid a comission – often $50, $100, or even $150 per new customer. Since hosting is a necessity for anyone looking to build a site, it’s a pretty good deal. I get a commission, the customer gets a good host, and the host gets a good customer – triple win!

Today I want to talk about my wildly opposite experiences that I’ve had with WP Engine and HostGator in particular.

WP Engine has an affiliate program that pays $150 per referral and is operated through SharaSale.

HostGator has an affiliate program that pays $100 per referral and is operated through an internal program as well as CJ (Commission Junction).

“Hey, WP Engine – Stop Paying Me!”

Before I headed up to Affiliate Summit West in January of this year, I looked at my ShareaSale account and saw that I was receiving crazy commissions from referring new customers. I was making $150 per signup but something about the numbers seemed crazy high, even for how high their payouts are.

I looked into it and saw that due to a glitch in the way bonuses were being tracked, I was being overpaid by over $1,600 that month!

As much as I would have liked to spent that extra 1.6K – and there was a good chance no one would have noticed – that was just unethical. So I emailed the company and told them to look into it. A week later, the “glitch” was corrected and my referrals were being tracked accurately. BTW, I’m pretty sure this was only happening to my account since I had a special setup with them – so no, I don’t think they were bleeding money to affiliates in the month of January ;)

I love WP Engine. They have unmatched uptime, great customer support, and they treat their affiliates very well – sometimes too well. This is in stark contrast to HostGator…

“Hey HostGator – Pay Me!”

During the same time I was also recommending HostGator VPS, especially for users with many sites, non-wordpress sites, or for people who needed cPanel functionality. I was earning $100 for recommending each new customer – not as generous as WP Engine’s – but at $150 a pop, it’s still a good commission.

Then sometime last fall I noticed that a bunch of my HostGator commissions were being cancelled or invalidated. When I logged into my affiliate panel I saw this:

Troubling? Yes. But especially so since the website at the bottom of that list is actually a site that I helped my friend get started. I asked him to use my link so I could get a commission when he signed up (and I thought it was a good way to test if HostGator is skimming its affiliates). The site is still hosted, he’s still paying for it, but for some reason I never got paid for that referral. Maybe it’s because his theme is broken, but still – they’re getting paid, so why am I not?

That’s when I started to suspect there might be some foul play with how HostGator tracks their referrals. I started Googling to see if I’m the only one who has experienced a problem like this. Here’s a whole list of people who have written about similar experiences (there’s even more if you look):

Apparently it’s a problem.

Some people were recommending switching over to their CJ hosted affiliate program & away from their internal affiliate program. I ended up making the switch to CJ to see if this alleviates the problem.

I’ve hosted sites with HostGator since 2011 and have been very happy with their VPS server and super solid uptime, from a customer’s perspective. But this experience with their affiliate program left such a bad taste in my mouth that I moved all my sites over to A Small Orange VPS instead (they use SSD drives like WP Engine and I’m very happy with their service!)

Then as a “bonus” last month I got a payment from HostGator’s internal affiliate program via Paypal…

(see how it says 2 comissions, but only $100?)

At this point I just said forget it, I’m not even dealing with this anymore.

Quora Coincidence

Here’s a somewhat strange coincidence that might help explain why HostGator is over-reaching on their security measures and end up screwing a lot of affiliates out of legitimate comissions.

A few weeks ago I was reading a Quora question titled What are the best examples of people “cheating the system”? and here’s an answer I found by one of the responders:

Read Quote of Pranav Reddy’s answer to Gaming the System: What are the best examples of people “cheating the system”? on Quora

So apparently we have people like Pranav Reddy to thank for cheating HostGator out of money, which then trickles down and causes sh*t like this for the rest of us.
(Update: see Pranav’s clarification in the comments below)

Conclusion?

So WP Engine overpaid me by thousands of dollars and HostGator has managed to invalidate a bunch of my referrals and underpay me. WP Engine pays $150 per new lead and HostGator pays $100 per new lead when they pay at all.

So yeah – I’ll let you make your own conclusion about that.

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3 Devices that Will Revolutionize How We Interface in 2013: MYO, Leap, & Google Glass

Max Spiker — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 20:59:20 +0000

Last month when I was applying for the wildcard spot at WPP Stream (which I didn’t get. boo!), I needed to think of what trend is going to define 2013. An obvious emerging trend to me is that 2013 is likely going to be the year of gestural interfaces – ala Minority Report – break out to finally free us from the shackles of ye old keyboard and mouse.

Even right now using a keyboard and mouse seems … kind of archaic. If I were to place myself 10 years in the future, the keyboard and mouse are equivalent to something like how a dot matrix printer looks to me now.

Here are 3 devices that are going to push us all forward in how we interact with technology this year:

1. MYO

I saw this video last week and pre-ordered a MYO in 2 minutes flat. The control reminds me of Magento from the X-Men series and his ability to levitate metal.

2. Leap

I also pre-ordered the Leap last year when the demo came out & showed off its capabilities. Right away I could imagine how much better this interface would be for manipulating images and graphics inside of PhotoShop than the mouse / trackpad / tablet currently allow.

3. Google Glass

Slated for launch in late 2013 Google Glass is every tech blogger’s favorite piece of future-tech. It looks to make Siri-esque voice command the default way to interact with the web via its translucent screen. Commands are voice activated and a finger-touch-sensitive control is built into the device.

To me these 3 technologies are giving us a glimpse of the future of interaction design. They will absolutely revolutionize how we interact with the world around us. And I think they’re just the tip of the iceberg. The 2010′s is an exciting time to be alive.

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Simple, Hotel Tonight, & Uber: 3 Services I Love Using (& You Will Too)

Max Spiker — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 17:25:29 +0000

Simple, Uber, and HotelTonight are 3 of my favorite companies (and apps) that are clearly ahead of their time. I believe that each one is a perfect example of “how everything will be done” in our hyper-connected future. I’m excited for the day when everything will work as smoothly and friction-free as the experiences I’ve had with each of them.

I use the term “experiences” because that’s really what sets these companies apart from regular web pages, apps, and run of the mill tools that most other companies seem to be providing these days.

Simple

Simple is a bank / debit card / money management tool that’s meant as a replacement for your bank (though I still use Bank of America since I have a number of accounts there). If all I needed was a personal account, I would most likely go all in on Simple. The website and apps are clutter-free and an absolute pleasure to use.

The card arrives in hassle-free packaging that doubles as a minimal wallet which I love. I’ve been using the cardboard & rubber band combo for months now. The rubber started to disintegrate but Simple dispatched me a replacement yesterday, which should arrive shortly.

Hotel Tonight

Hotel Tonight is hands down the best service for a last minute traveler. Just yesterday I booked our Miami Beach hotel using Hotel Tonight. Every day at noon the HotelTonight app (available for iPhone & Android) shows a list of discounted quality hotels for growing list of cities.

The rates are usually anywhere from good to fantastic. Last month I was able to get a last minute Hard Rock Hotel room in Las Vegas for a total of $28. The deals are even better if you have a Founders Card – you get $50 off your first booking and a 15% rebate on all future bookings (which really adds up).

Your credit card is always on file so every booking is super fast and easy. You just show up to the hotel.

Uber

Uber is an upscale car service that utilizes real-time GPS. It costs a bit more than a taxi but you get a really nice car (like a Mercedes or Escalade) and you get to see a map of where all the available drivers are. You schedule a pickup by adjusting your location on the map and order the service, which then gives you a running ETA and a map of a dispatched driver’s current location.

Your credit card is on already on file (just like Hotel Tonight) so you never have to deal with payment or tip – it’s already calculated. All you do is get out of the car & quickly rate your driver and experience on a 1-5 star scale.

So what sets these companies so far apart from their competition?

All 3 of these services are obviously hyper-focused on providing the best experience for their users utilizing the best of what current technology can actually offer – in innovative & envelope-pushing ways that give us an exciting glimpse of the types of experiences we can expect in our future.

They’re not just trying to strap on a new web site or web app as an afterthought. They’re quite literally inventing the future by showing us what UX is capable of as it lets us interact with the world around us.

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I Fail and I Suck

Max Spiker — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 17:41:36 +0000

I fail. And I suck.

Often.

And don’t confuse this with the type of failing and sucking – or my admitting of it – that’s meant to bounce right back into some form of virtue, the way a startup’s CEO might quip about on her blog as a price paid for achieving success.

I mean I really suck. At everything. Relationships, money, friendships, addictions, you name it. I’ve sucked at it. And I still do – deep in the vortex of it all – everyday – at the intersection of the whims of this fickle universe and my actions in it. And I will continue to suck well and proper into the last of my years with all the fervor of lame-osity that will embarrass myself and all the people I care about.

And then there’s times I’m brilliant. The times I win. But those don’t nullify or denigrate the suck. Neither does the suck nullify and denigrate the brilliant. Both happen. And neither extreme of the pendulum nullify the other, as much as we’d like it to.

I’m tired of reading blogs where everything is turdned into a lesson, a virtue, or a thinly veiled exhibition of blatant narcissism masquerading itself as enlightenment.
Suck happens. Hard.

And I do it everyday.
No life lesson here.

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The Easy Way to Create a Vignette in Photoshop

Max Spiker — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 20:55:46 +0000

I wanted to share a quick tip for you that discovered thanks to this post on Focus Faction, updated below for Photoshop CS6 (the menu is now in a different place). This is the fastest and easiest way to create a vignette for your photos in Photoshop in just a few seconds. It has saved me a lot of time.

1. Go to Filter » Lens Correction…

2. Click on the Custom Tab

3. Under the Vignette section, move the amount slider to the left towards “darken” and adjust the midpoint slider to suit your needs.

Voila! A simple vignette in just a few seconds.

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Free PSD Templates » Twitter, Facebook & Google+ Header Covers

Max Spiker — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 23:06:36 +0000

I just helped a good friend of mine (re)launch a video film-making site and in the process I needed to create some custom graphics for his cover photos on various social networks.

Having to constantly Google all the pixel dimensions and sizes, I decided to make a reference for myself anyone else who wants to bookmark this page with the exact pixel widths and heights of each of the social networks’ cover photo sizes. In addidion, I though it would be cool to include free PSD’s you can download and use to help you create your own cover photos:

Download All 3 PSD’s

Twitter Cover

Size: Recommended 1252 x 626 px / On Page 520 x 260 px

Download Twitter Cover PSD

Twitter recommends uploading a size of 1252 px by 626 px but scales everything down to 520 px by 260 px. If you want to future proof your cover size I’d go ahead and upload the larger version, but for now the normal size should be sufficient.

Facebook Cover

Size: 851 x 315 px

Download Facebook Cover PSD

Facebook cover size is 851 px by 315 px and the profile picture that overlays it is 160 px by 160 px

Google Plus Cover

March 2013 update: Google+ has changed the cover size to 2120 x 1129 pixels – you can get an updated PSD template from this blog: new Google+ cover template

Size: Required 940 x 180 px / Cropped to 890 x 180 px

Download Google+ Cover PSD

Google+ requires an image that’s at least 940px wide to upload but then crops 10 pixels off the left side and 40 pixels off the right side so the header ends up displaying a width of 890px when a visitors sees it.

Click the download buttons above to grab layered PSD’s that should help you design your own versions of these covers. Each Photoshop file is layered and includes guides that you can snap to that match the pixel dimensions that are needed. I also include a few hidden layers that should help you see what your finished cover will eventually look like in multiple ways.

Download All 3 PSD’s

Please feel free to copy and repost these as long as you link back to this page.

Cover Inspiration

Here are a few quality articles that I recommend if you need some inspiration to get started:

Hope you find the articles and templates useful. And one last thing…

You should follow me on google+ here.

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WP Engine WordPress Hosting Review

Max Spiker — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 23:27:34 +0000

WP Engine is serious hosting. In fact, I usually don’t recommend them to anyone who’s just blogging for fun or isn’t running some sort of business online. Dreamhost and Hostgator are actually a lot cheaper and are pretty solid choices when it comes to more “hobby” cases.

Where WP Engine does shine though – is for medium to higher end needs – and for serious blogs or sites that need speed, reliability, and security. Since I run a number of high traffic sites, I went ahead and moved the largest one to WP Engine.

It’s a pretty demanding site and I’ve hosted it with WPE for about 6 months now (about 20 GB of transfer / 20,000+ pageviews per day so it’s pretty resource intensive). They’ve been near flawless – at least when it comes to site performance. The site has not had any downtime, even in times of traffic surges.

I have had a few hickups on the customer service front along the way though. And I did have an issue with backups not running properly (which tech support ended up fixing). So is it a panacea for hosting? Certainly not – as you will invariably have some kind of issues with any host. However – the part that matters the most to me – having the site up and running constantly & securely – WP Engine has been rock solid.

3 reasons to host your WordPress site on WP Engine:

Uptime and site load speeds are stellar (which also really helps SEO)
They take advanced security measures to make sure your site is hackproof
You get what you pay for

See this article for a more in-depth review of the service and this one for another person’s (similar) story of finally outsourcing everything that it takes to actually take care of your WordPress installation so you can focus on blogging or running a successful site instead of dealing with the technical side of things.

You can also run this speed test if you’re hosted somewhere else right now and want to see how much faster your site would be on WP Engine. Usually you’ll see drastically reduced loading times. This is because WP Engine employs a lot of engineers who are experts at WordPress and speed and scalability. They ONLY host WordPress sites and keep the servers and databases optimized for performance.

One more thing – if you end up going with the $99 per month (or higher) plan, please make sure they turn on CDN (content delivery network). When I first signed up I assumed it was going to be activated automatically, and only a few months later I realized that it wasn’t the case – that I had to specifically ask them to do it. If you don’t know what a CDN is or want to know why it makes a big difference, read this post on SearchEngineLand.

So if you’re running any important sites on WordPress and you’re looking to have a lot less headaches with your hosting, I suggest giving WP Engine a shot.

To Sign up with WP Engine click here.

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Meditate on That Sh*t

Max Spiker — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 00:12:57 +0000

This poster was made by DesignTaco and I first saw it on Recovering Yogi but it was 2.2 MB so I reposted it here in an easier-to-digest-and-download format.

Meditate on that sh*t.

Namaste.

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