Just a thanks to Adam H

[MurrayMurray is verified member.]

I posted the other day about a WordPress site being hacked and adsense codes being changed

The problem was worse than I thought and links had also been placed in the content

Technical knowledge isn't my strong point so I contacted @Adam H who was very patient and helpful and managed to clean and secure the site within a couple of hours or so

Also helped me out with some other general Wordpress things

I wouldn't say his help was cheap but when you have a site that generates a fair income you really can't mess around.

If you need help with a Wordpress site, I would recommend Adam

 

[Domaintial]

Nice community building and sharing the love

LPT: Implement two factor auth on your valuable wordpress sites - Duo is usually my goto choice usually. In fact... 2FA everything you can

 

[MurrayMurray is verified member.]

LPT: Implement two factor auth on your valuable wordpress sites - Duo is usually my goto choice usually. In fact... TFA everything you can

If your username is random and your password is strong, you have something that blocks people who use incorrect logins, is the login usually the problem?

I would have thought most hacks out are through plugins or out of date stuff, but I don't know much so

 

[Domaintial]

You're right, the most common attack vector these days is insecure code... usually in my experience its bloody RevSlider.

But 2FA kills brute force attacks. (+ some sort of fail2ban implementation)

Password managers are the other important one

 

[Adam HAdam H is verified member.]

Thanks Murray, was my pleasure and glad I could help.

@Domaintial, Revslider hasnt been vulnerable for a considerable amount of time, the main reason it was so rampant was because it shipped with alot of premium themes meaning alot of end users didnt have access to the plugin updates. One of the downfalls of getting themes from places like themeforest. Revslider is a good plugin, although far too bloated for my liking.

 

[aZooZaaZooZa is verified member.]

@Adam H Great community help stuff. Can you recommend a source of WP themes that (as far as you know) are not dodgy? A friend of mine has just bought this:

https://themeforest.net/item/newspaper/5489609

Do you think he should bin it? Of course I'm not looking for a detailed answer but just a nod will do if you have an inkling

 

[Adam HAdam H is verified member.]

I wouldnt say all themeforest themes are "dodgy", far from it as there is some great authors at themeforest. I would just recommend choosing very carefully and if you can justify the cost of not using a pre-made theme then don't, if it makes more sense to use a pre-made theme however id say the key factors id personally look for is quantity of sales vs amount products that author has, so in your situation they have an amazing sales record and only provide 2 products at themeforest which to me is a win.

That has to say something, it means its a viable business to warrant keeping it supported, keeping it updated and most importantly responding quickly to security patches. If they had hundreds of products then they could be over exerting them selves which should show in the reviews. Its obvious the occasional poor review from less informed people will be there , but if the general consensus is good and response times are good then its obviously a great sign.

My pet hates and something I hole heartedly have a passion about is page builders, things like visual composer.....................I would avoid like the plague personally. Yes they make things easy for end users to move things around , position things how they want but if that site ever starts to grow and you need something less bloated and more light weight a page builder will be the bulk of the bloat which has to go first, as a result it leaves behind huge amounts of redundant BBcode which then needs someone that knows what they are doing with Search and replace or ragex to convert all the old BB code to something useable, if the site is of serious scale with different layouts across 100's or more page that takes time and obviously time is money especially if you can't do it yourself and need to hire someone to do it.

I generally ask people before using a pre-made theme : do you really need all the bells and whistles, do you need the 10 plugins which is "required" for the theme to work when really you're just using a the theme for a simple blog or 5 page website.

So to answer your question, I personally wouldnt recommend any pre-made theme, not because they are all bad but because I hate recommending a service or product which I personally cant backup myself and guarantee it will still be around in 12 months time. But rule of thumb, if it requires loads of plugins to function, I tend to recommend against it..........especially visual composer or similar.

Just to note, that theme you pointed out does use visual composer. Just be mindful, if you really don't need to use the page builder then id recommend against it.

There are some great developer base themes out there with basic CSS frameworks which are lightweight and free to use, it just requires a bit of knowledge to customise them rather than things being easy to use and move around.

 

[aZooZaaZooZa is verified member.]

@Adam H You're very kind and obliging. Thank you very much!

 

[deedee is verified member.]

@Adam H Good info ta. Any unbloated lightweight themes you recommend that you've used yourself?

 

[Domaintial]

Personally, I like the Genesis framework and themes from https://www.studiopress.com/ - not had issues with those as they are, tend to be my goto starting point.

 

[Adam HAdam H is verified member.]

My personal preferences are bootstrap or foundation based css frameworks with little or no bloat other than whats actually needed, then you can add functions, custom post types etc as you see fit for a particular need, not just have it because its there. Mainly on developer base themes such as these : http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-themes/21-best-wordpress-starter-themes-for-developers/

I'm not a fan of genesis personally.

 

[Domaintial]

Although drifting a little here... but then why bother building on WP at all? If you can code, then build from the ground up/build from scratch - which is what I prefer to do, Bootstrap + jQuery and you're sorted.

 

[Adam HAdam H is verified member.]

I wasnt aware we were talking about something specific or remember saying I used/recommended Worpdress as a sole solution. It obviously depends on the project in hand, some warrant a bespoke platform, others... it makes more sense to use Wordpress especially if there is a budget to work with. Wordpress is highly customisable, has a wealth of already made addons/functions without the need to custom develop absolutely everything, it gives most users what they need to manage the site them selves and there is a huge support community for end users.

There is pro's and con's for every platform whether its bespoke or not.

 

[Adam HAdam H is verified member.]

@Adam H, I wondered if you have tried or have any thoughts on the Hugo (gohugo.io) site generator?

Thats not one I've seen before, looks interesting though. Reminds me alot of https://getkirby.com/

 

[matmat is verified member.]

I agree @Adam H. When I look for themes as a starting base for my affiliate sites, I can't stand the over complex themes that seem to be the norm these days as you say with drag and drop page builders and required plugins.

All I look for is something roughly in the layout I need, which I can then fully pull apart and edit and use only the plugins my project requires.