When troubleshooting a slow WordPress site, an often overlooked culprit is the wp_options database table. This table houses a variety of crucial site data, including:
permalinks
site settings
scheduled posts
widget data
In fact, nearly every WordPress page—from the front end to the admin screens—executes the query SELECT option_name, option_value FROM wp_options WHERE autoload = 'yes'. If this query does not run efficiently, the results can be devastating to a site’s speed. Read More on Keeping your WordPress options table in check
On March 9th, join me at A Day of REST Boston: a conference devoted to exploring the WordPress REST API in-depth. My lightning talk, 5-10 Use Cases in 10 Minutes, describes various ways organizations are using the REST API in their digital projects.
If we spent our first five years pioneering and staking our claim in the world, in our sixth year we cultivated the organization and culture we pioneered. We rallied around trends and shifts in our industry and redoubled our investment into telling our story.
The initiative to better express our story culminated in a refresh of our company website, prominently featuring a new mission statement, proudly summarized by a promise to deliver “finely crafted websites and tools that make the web better.” We reinvigorated our project case studies, moving to a layout that better celebrates the challenges we’ve conquered with our clients. And we completely overhauled our Careers section, taking deliberate strides to better represent our culture of diversity and inclusion.
We’re proud to announce ElasticPress.io: a hosted service that integrates with ElasticPress, our popular plugin, to provide a fast and flexible search and query engine for WordPress.
We built ElasticPress to overcome higher-end performance and functional limits posed by the more traditional, structured (SQL) database underpinning WordPress. Storing content in a modern (noSQL) query engine like Elasticsearch empowers us to produce superior keyword search and related content results, and supercharge the performance of complex queries like a filter on multiple product properties or a location. Smarter and faster content makes for a better web and, not accidentally, is important to search engines and visitor retention / conversion.
While our plugin made it simple for WordPress-savvy engineers to talk to Elasticsearch, the need to manage Elasticsearch hosting added friction and complexity, at odds with the simple user experience 10up strives for. As we prototyped exciting use cases involving private content, we realized that end-to-end security added even more complexity.
ElasticPress.io solves all of that—making it dead-simple to start using enterprise-caliber search and query technology with WordPress. It enables innovative features like accelerated admin performance that require end-to-end control and security.
We’re proud to introduce the WordPress Component Library: a collection of front-end components constructed with WordPress and accessibility at the forefront.
Many of the HTML and CSS components we build for our clients are structurally similar, particularly for prolific features like menus, search forms, posts, and blogrolls. A common starting point offers efficiencies to our clients while simultaneously raising the bar on polish and compliance with standards like accessibility. In evaluating existing libraries, we found that the industry was missing a good, open source project built with WordPress’s often opinionated markup (e.g. menus) and basic layout structure in mind.
10up client FiveThirtyEight’s political coverage earned the stats-minded publisher four spots in ChartBeat’s top 25 most engaging stories of 2016, including #1 for their 2016 election forecast. This interactive feature provided predictions in the US presidential race, as well as 34 Senate contests nationwide, leading up to the November elections.
We love seeing clients like FiveThirtyEight topping the charts alongside long-established publishers like BBC, the New York Times, and NPR.
Meet our new Careers section! Designed to better describe our company culture and values, we want to extend a welcoming hand to a wide set of candidates with clear job descriptions and expectations. If you’re ready for a new challenge, drop us a line.
In celebration of another successful year, 10up will be on holiday break from Friday, December 23 through Monday, January 2. We’re looking forward to recharging our collective batteries, as we prepare to buckle in for 2017.
What, exactly, does the “average” 10upper do with 11 days away from the virtual office, anyhow?
Join team 10up (from wherever you are) on Dec 6 and 7 for the 2016 Remote Working Conference. This two-day streaming event focuses on how to succeed in a remote working environment and will dispel the myths around distributed teams.
On Day 1, John Eckman will present “Distributed, not Disconnected: Employee Engagement for Remote Work.” Remote teams carry the stigma of being less connected than their co-located counterparts. John will share techniques and tools to drive engagement in a distributed workplace.
On Day 2, I close the event with my talk “Designing a Better UX Hiring Process.” Vetting UX applicants can be a challenge for remote agencies. Video interviews and online portfolios help, but cannot be the only metrics used to find the best UX design talent. In this talk, I’ll share our strategy for attracting and hiring top UX candidates.
Yesterday, Washington, D.C. NPR regional affiliate WAMU released a fully reimagined website in partnership with 10up. Designed to elegantly present written and audio content, we engineered a cutting-edge WordPress implementation that leverages React.js and the WordPress REST API to create an immersive single-page app experience. Visitors can listen to audio content using the player bar pinned to the bottom of the screen, without interruption, as they browse the site on a phone, tablet, or desktop browser.
Jake Goldman
Jon Bellah
10up client 
Taylor Dewey
Phil Crumm