Weekly WordPress News: WordPress 4.7.1 and Google Mobile Popup Penalty

This week, WordPress 4.7 got a minor tweak to fix some security and maintenance issues.

Freemius also has a good breakdown of the reasoning behind their decision to start using a WordPress page builder.

And if you’re using mobile pop-ups on the first page readers see after coming from Google search results, you’ll want to knock that out immediately. Google rolled out their mobile penalty for intrusive popups as of January 10th.

Let’s get to all of this week’s news…

WORDPRESS NEWS AND ARTICLES

• We Used to Hate WordPress Page Builders – Now We Decided to Use One – Kobe discusses the decision to start using a page builder.
• 2016 in review Pippin’s Plugins – Pippin gives his thoughts on 2016, including pricing, renewing subscriptions, and more.
• WordPress 4.7.1 Security and Maintenance Release – WordPress 4.7.1 dropped to fix some security issues.
• Wix abandons WordPress GPL editor fork in favour of original MIT library – the Wix-WordPress saga continues.
• Google confirms rolling out the mobile intrusive interstitials penalty – Google’s penalty for intrusive mobile popups is officially out in the wild. Change your site before it’s too late.
• If you spend a year developing a WordPress theme, are you wasting your life? – Chris Lema answers an existential question.

TUTORIALS AND HOW-TOS

• How to Create a Content Strategy for Your WordPress Site? – learn how to create an actual content strategy for your site.
• The Ultimate Guide to Finding the Best WordPress Security Plugins – learn how to pick a WordPress security plugin.
• How to Create a Custom 404 Page – a beginner focused tutorial from The Mogul Mom.
• A Guide to Designing Better Buttons and CTAs for WordPress – buttons are important to boost your conversions and CTR.
• How to Create a WordPress Rating Plugin – a two-part tutorial on how to create a WordPress rating plugin.
• How to Optimize WordPress Revisions for Faster Performance – Kinsta shows you how to get a handle on WordPress revisions.

RESOURCES & FREEBIES

• 5 Best Free CDN Solutions for WordPress to Speed Up Your Site – the best free solutions to add a CDN to your website.
• UserPro Review – Detailed User Profiles and Improved Registration – learn how you can add detailed user profiles in our UserPro review.
• 7 Tips to Delight Your Audience With Your Writing – learn how you can delight your audience.
• 7 Copywriting Mistakes Killing Your WordPress Site – and how you can avoid disappointing your audience!
• Episode 18: Pippin Williamson & Restrict Content Pro – How I Built It talks to Pippin about Restrict Content Pro.
• A quick interview with Mario Peshev (DevriX) – CSS Ignitor interviews Mario, WordPress core contributor and founder of DevriX.