Michael Adams, from WordPress, has launched a beta of a new Compatibility feature in the plugin directory, which is powered by people’s votes. Perhaps advanced web hosting users will look to help out.

When viewing a plugin in the directory, users can select a WordPress version and a plugin type from the drop-downs. The percentage of people that marked a combination as compatible against how many put it down as incompatible is then shown.

Those web hosting users that wish to join in can logon and choose a WordPress version and a plugin type and then either click the ‘works’ or the ‘broken’ button.

At the current time, the WordPress team is just getting all the information together, but they are encouraging people to vote, and not just on broken plugins.

"Cast a ‘Works’ vote for every plugin that works on the version of WordPress you are using. This can help improve the signal-to-noise ratio in our data and prevent a few mistaken ‘Broken’ votes from weighing too heavily," Mark Jaquith wrote on the company blog.

He added that eventually the WordPress team is hoping to gather this compatibility feedback from within WordPress, letting users vote directly from their plugins admin screen.

The aim is to use the data gathered to inform people of plugin incompatibilities with a new version of WordPress during the upgrade process and for this to be useful, WordPress needs a large set of high-quality compatibility information.

Work is currently ongoing on WordPress 2.9 and soon the first beta version will be available. Those using advanced web hosting users could get involved with the 2.9 beta testing.

Written by Jermaine Jones

Buying a spot in a link roundup section on someone else’s blog is one method suggested by Gab Goldenberg of link building firm SEOROI, who added that paying for an inclusion in a widely syndicated "Recent Blog Posts" widget can be an excellent way to raise the profile of a site.

The more technically-minded may even want to consider releasing a new WordPress hosting theme or template that they can claim to be the designer of.

They need not have created it themselves, according to Mr Goldenberg, but can get someone else to ghost write it for them and put their own name as a "designed by" link at the bottom.

Earlier this month, Business Link advisor Ganesh Selvarajah told the BBC that using a web hosting site to promote a business can be a good way of expanding a list of contacts.

Including links to work that "you have done before" could be particularly beneficial, he claimed.

Written by Jessica Lighthouse

First and foremost, the keenness of technicians to offer up their latest version of their product for such vigorous testing can be taken as being indicative of their commitment to quality.

The whole process, according to the firm’s Peter Westwood, is focused on stabilising the new version’s features and removing existing bugs. He added that the testing will help to ensure that 2.9 is as "bug-free as possible", complemented with special "bug-hunt days" where WordPress developers will be available to help track down and fix problems that continue to occur.

In a separate post on the WordPress site blog, Matt Mullenweg underlined the commitment of the WordPress community to keeping businesses set up on the system safe.

He explained that firms taking advantage of WordPress web hosting are serviced by a community of "hundreds of people that read the code every day, audit it, [and] update it".

However, he makes the understandable concession that he is not clairvoyant so cannot predict in what form or what direction the next threat will emerge. "But I do know for certain that as long as WordPress is around we’ll do everything in our power to make sure the software is safe," Mr Mullenweg explained.

Short of clairvoyance, businesses are offered upgrades and round-the-clock attention to the code supporting their blogs and website templates. No mean feat when the number of threats around is taken into account.

Written by Sarah Woolf

EShop provides businesses with a number of sophisticated features to spice up their website WordPress templates, including various methods for listing products.

Meanwhile, the Shopp Requirement Check tool is particularly useful for ecommerce businesses handling larger online operations, by helping to mitigate some of the complex processes.

Among the Shopp features are search engine optimised shopping pages and dynamic categories that highlight new product additions and featured products.

The plug-ins have been touted in a recent post on the Taranga Simple Thoughts blog, which highlights the order handling benefits available to administrators using the tool.

Online businesses will soon be given the opportunity to test the new WordPress 2.9 beta version of the web hosting tool, which the company recently announced will be made available soon.

Written by Mick Woods

Matthew Mullenweg, from the WordPress team, has advised web hosting users that upgrading to the 2.8.4 version can help in preventing attacks from the worm.

The 2.8.4 version was released last month after a vulnerability was identified which involved a specially crafted URL which could be requested to let an attacker skip a security check to verify that a user requested a password reset.

As for the worm, it registers a user and employs a security bug to let evaluated code to be executed via the permalink structure, Mr Mullenweg explained. The worm then makes itself an admin, uses JavaScript to hide itself when people view a user’s page and tries to clean up once it has left, leaving hidden spam and malware on old posts.

Mr Mullenweg recommended that users upgrade, something which the WordPress team has tried to make as simple as possible.

He commented: "If you’ve been thinking about upgrading but haven’t gotten around to it yet, now would be a really good time.

"If you’ve already upgraded your blogs, maybe check out the blogs of your friends or that you read and see if they need any help. A stitch in time saves nine."

Club solutions were also advised by Mr Mullenweg for WordPress security and he revealed that these can either be very simple or particularly complicated.

They can be helpful, acting like a complicated password for logins, but the WordPress team member stressed that the only real way to keep blogs secure is to upgrade.

Updates are released by the WordPress community within weeks of each other so that blogs are protected from "bad guys", according to Mr Mullenweg, who asserted that as long as WordPress is around it will look to do everything it can to keep the software safe.

Writing for the Jerusalem Post, David Shamah explained that WordPress still enables firms to create a unique website – almost to the standard of a professional web designer.

Many businesses opt to stick with the default theme, he indicated, which is why some people’s websites look similar.

However, Mr Shamah explained that changing the theme of the WordPress site is easy to do.

Whether businesses use WordPress 2.8.2 hosting or an earlier version, there are also plenty of plug-ins and add-ons to enhance a WordPress site that enables quick and easy web-building.

The Orlando Internet Business Examiner recently warned businesses against overly promoting their site before they have developed a solid base of quality content themselves.

This is particularly the case for blogging websites that use WordPress hosting.

The first step is to get a quick, sharp domain name, without wasting too much time on coming up with a moniker, as most traffic will get to the blog via organic search results anyway, explains the Orlando Internet Business Examiner.

Choosing a web host that allows for one-click installs of WordPress is beneficial, as this is "the most widely used (and best) blogging platform available", the news provider continues.

Firms must also avoid going over-the-top to promote their blog before they have a strong base of quality content, it suggests, urging bloggers to write and edit at least ten articles before launching the blog officially.

Only then should the blog be promoted – via similar blogs, Twitter, message boards and other sources – and the hard work of growing a blog kept up.

When it comes to choosing a web host for WordPress blogs, JustHost was named the best last month by Web Host Ghostwriter, commended for its "quality hardware, plethora of features and super-responsive customer support".

Matt Mullenweg, founding developer of WordPress, revealed on a company blog that a vulnerability had been found that involved a specially crafted URL which could be requested, allowing an attacker to bypass a security check.

This check verifies a user requested a password reset, meaning that the first account without a key in the database would have its password reset, he explained.

A new password would then be emailed to the account owner, not allowing remote access but being "very annoying" nevertheless, Mr Mullenweg said.

He added that version 2.8.4 fixes all known problems and it is "highly recommended for all users of WordPress".

Earlier this month, Jane Wells from the WordPress team publicised some upcoming WordCamps, conferences run by local communities to discuss WordPress, with one based in Los Angeles on September 12th.