Category: wpmudev.com

You may already know that WordPress lets you schedule posts to publish at a later date, but did you know that you can also schedule posts to automatically unpublish after a set time period?

In a previous article, we looked at the best post scheduling plugins for WordPress. Depending on the nature of your content, however, you may also want posts to automatically unpublish after having served their purpose.

In this article, we look at practical ways to use expiring posts in WordPress and plugins that will help you automate this.

We’ll cover the following areas:

• Effective Ways to Use Expiring Posts
• Expiring Post Plugins for WordPress

21 Ways to Use Expiring Posts

Here are 21 ways to improve your content and marketing strategy using expiring posts in WordPress:

1. Time-Sensitive Promotions

If you run time-limited sales announcements, promotions, offers, or contests on your website, scheduling expiring posts lets you automatically remove or update those posts once the promotional period has ended.

Scheduling posts to automatically expire at the end of a promotional campaign ensures that visitors and customers are not presented with outdated offers or information, preventing confusion and avoiding disappointment, and helps to maintain your brand’s credibility.

For example, let’s say you have a retail store or an eCommerce website and are planning to run a week-long flash sale on selected items. You could create a series of posts promoting different products and schedule them to automatically expire at the end of the sale period, ensuring that customers only see your active promotions.

2. Seasonal Updates

Scheduling expiring posts can be really useful if your business has seasonal products, services, or events.

Automatically expiring posts that contain seasonal content, such as holiday greetings, seasonal sales, or event announcements (e.g. festivals, growers markets, etc.) helps to keep your website’s content aligned with the current season and relevant throughout the year, and avoids showcasing outdated products or information.

This is not only useful for businesses that offer seasonal products or services, such as gardening supplies or holiday-specific decorations, but also seasonal offers or services.

For example, if you have a holiday-specific campaign, you can schedule the corresponding posts to expire once the holiday is over, saving you the effort of manually having to remove or update content every season.

Or, let’s say your client runs a travel agency and wants to showcase different holiday destinations throughout the year (or promote destinations that match discounted airfares from different airlines). They could create posts highlighting specific locations and set them to automatically expire once the corresponding season ends, keeping their website content aligned with the current season.

3. Event Management

Setting expiration dates for event-related posts ensures that outdated event details are automatically removed, maintaining accurate and up-to-date information for attendees.

For example, if your company organizes events, you can schedule posts to expire after the event has taken place. This helps manage event-specific content, such as registration details, agenda updates, or speaker information, and ensures that your website stays relevant before and after the event.

Similarly, if your business organizes conferences, you could create posts promoting each session and speaker and then schedule these to expire after the session has taken place, ensuring that outdated session details are automatically removed.

4. Limited-Time Offers

Promoting exclusive deals or discounts by scheduling posts to expire when the offer period ends creates a sense of urgency for visitors and encourages customers to make timely purchases.

This is ideal for online retailers planning to launch a one-day or weekend sale with posts featuring discounted products.

By scheduling posts to automatically publish when the event kicks off and then setting the posts to expire at the end of the sale, they would not only create a sense of urgency but automate the entire process so they wouldn’t even have to monitor it (think of all those limited-time sales that end at midnight…you could be sleeping and still be making money!)

5. News and Updates

When you have important announcements or releases that need to be shared at a specific time, such as product launches, press releases, or scheduled events, scheduling expiring posts ensures that the information becomes available and expires automatically according to your desired schedule.

Scheduling your news articles, press releases, or industry updates posts to automatically expire when the information loses its relevance or becomes outdated after a certain period helps to keep your website current, maintains a current and accurate representation of the news landscape, and ensures that readers are always presented with the latest news stories.

6. Product Launches

Scheduling posts to expire after a product launch prevents outdated information about previous releases from cluttering your website.

If you are a technology company planning to release a new version of its software, foir example, you could create a series of posts providing information and updates about the upcoming release, then schedule these to expire shortly after the launch to prevent users from accessing outdated software details.

7. Temporary Notices or Alerts

Displaying time-sensitive notices or alerts, such as maintenance notifications or temporary closures, that automatically expire once the issue or event has passed, ensures that visitors no longer see the closure notice.

For example, a small business could display a notice on its website about a temporary closure due to personal reasons (e.g. owners travelling overseas or a death of a key business team member), and schedule the post to expire once the business reopens.

8. Membership or Subscription Expiration

Automatically expiring posts that are accessible only to members or subscribers after their membership or subscription period ends, encourages them to renew or upgrade.

A good example of this is where a membership-based website grants access to premium content for a specific subscription period and sets users’ access to posts and resources to automatically expire at the end of their subscription.

9. Course or Lesson Availability

Controlling access to course or lesson content by scheduling posts to expire based on the duration of the course or availability of the material encourages students to progress through the course within a designated timeframe.

For example, an online learning platform could provide access to course materials for a limited duration with each lesson post scheduled to expire after a certain number of days.

10. Contest or Giveaway End Dates

Setting posts to expire when a contest or giveaway ends ensures that the information remains accurate and helps to avoid confusion for participants.

A practical use of this could be where a social media influencer runs a giveaway and promotes it through posts on their website. The posts are then scheduled to expire at the end of the giveaway, ensuring that participants can no longer enter after the specified deadline.

11. Archiving Outdated Content

Automatically expiring and archiving posts that are no longer relevant or useful keeps your website clutter-free and ensures a better user experience.

For example, suppose your company blog features posts about past product releases. As new products are launched, the corresponding posts are then scheduled to expire and automatically move to an archive section, keeping the main blog focused on current offerings.

12. Regulatory Compliance

If you need to comply with specific regulations regarding the removal or expiration of certain types of content, scheduling posts to expire can help you meet those requirements.

An example of where setting posts to expire once a required duration has passed to ensure compliance with regulations would be where a financial-related institution publishes posts with legal disclaimers that must be displayed for a specific time period.

13. Legal Compliance

Similar to the above, you can automatically expire posts that contain time-limited legal disclaimers, privacy policies, terms of service, or cookie notices to ensure compliance with changing regulations.

For example, let’s say that an online service provider includes a cookie notice on their website. The post containing the notice can be scheduled to expire after the required consent duration, ensuring compliance with data privacy regulations.

14. Expiring Downloads or Resources

You can also schedule posts to expire when downloadable files, resources, or documents are no longer available or have been updated.

Scheduling posts related to older versions to expire once new updates are released ensures that users access only the most recent and relevant resources and prevents them from accessing outdated information.

15. Scheduled Content Updates

Plan ahead by scheduling posts to expire and automatically trigger updates or new content, ensuring a consistent publishing schedule and reducing manual intervention.

So, if you run a magazine-style website publishing articles on a weekly basis, you could schedule posts to automatically expire at the time of each new publication, allowing for seamless content updates without manual intervention.

16. A/B Testing

Using expiring posts to test different versions of content or design elements by setting expiration dates lets you compare performance and make data-driven decisions.

For example, suppose you run an e-commerce website and want to test two different versions of a product description. You could create two posts, each featuring a different description, and schedule them to expire after a set period. You can then analyze the metrics and determine which version performs better.

17. Content Rotation

Automatically cycling through a set of posts by scheduling them to expire and publishing new content allows you to create a dynamic and ever-changing website experience.

Suppose an art gallery website wants to showcase different artists. They could schedule posts featuring different artists’ works to automatically expire and publish new posts showcasing other artists, providing a constantly changing selection for visitors.

18. User Engagement

Encouraging regular visits to your website by regularly expiring and replacing content helps to entice users to return for fresh information and increased engagement.

An example of this would be where a lifestyle blog regularly features “Tip of the Week” posts. Each post is scheduled to automatically expire after a week, encouraging readers to return for fresh tips.

19. Content Freshness

By scheduling non-evergreen posts to expire, you ensure that your website or blog remains up-to-date with fresh content. This is particularly important if you publish time-sensitive information, such as news, promotions, or event announcements on a regular basis.

Once a post expires, it can automatically be removed or replaced with new content, keeping your website content fresh and relevant.

20. Content Cleanup

Schedule posts to expire and be removed from your website’s public view to maintain a clean and organized content repository.

For example, suppose your blog includes guest posts or paid posts that are only relevant for a limited time. You can schedule guest posts to expire and be removed from your website after the agreed-upon period, keeping your content repository well maintained, clean, and focused.

21. Editorial Workflow

Scheduling expiring posts allows you to plan your content publishing in advance. This can help streamline your content creation process and manage your editorial calendar more effectively.

By pre-scheduling expiration dates, you can focus on creating new content rather than constantly monitoring and manually updating old posts.

This is useful for businesses with news-like websites that follow an editorial calendar. They can schedule posts to expire according to the planned publication schedule, ensuring a steady flow of new content while seamlessly removing outdated articles from the website.

Expiring Post Plugins for WordPress

Here are some post expiration plugins for WordPress you can use to publish a post for a limited time and have your posts be automatically unpublished after the period has expired:

PublishPress Future

PublishPress Future (formerly Post Expirator) is a simple and easy-to-use plugin that not only lets you automatically unpublish posts, pages, and other content types in WordPress, but also delete your post, change its status, update the post categories, or make other changes.

With PublishPress Future installed, you can:

• Choose expiry dates for content in any post type.
• Select expiry dates in the right sidebar when editing posts.
• Modify, remove or completely delete content when the expiry date arrives.
• Modify expiry dates using “Quick Edit” and “Bulk Edit”.
• Receive email notifications when your content expires.
• Show expiry dates in your content, automatically or with shortcodes.

After installing and activating the plugin, you will see the plugin’s editor block (if using the Block Editor) or settings panel (Classic editor) when creating or editing a post, giving you flexibility and control over when your content will expire.

Simply enter the date and time that you want your post to expire using the intuitive interface…

And choose what should happen to the post when it expires by selecting an option from the “Action To Run” section…

You have various options for future actions on expired posts.

For example, you can:

• Change the status to Draft, Private, or Trash.
• Delete the post.
• Keep all existing categories, and add new categories.
• Remove all existing categories, and add new categories.
• Keep all existing categories, except for those specified in this change.
• Enable the “Stick to the top of the blog” option.
• Disable the “Stick to the top of the blog” option.
• Move the post to a custom status (Pro version)

PublishPress Future gives you complete control of scheduling and managing post expirations via its extensive settings panel. A Pro version of the plugin is available offering additional features and support.

The PublishPress Future plugin includes the following additional features and functionalities:

Quick and Bulk Edit

Use the convenience of the plugin’s “Quick Edit” and “Bulk Edit” options to make changes to expiry dates. and manage a large number of posts.

Email Notifications

Receive notifications when your posts are due to expire so you can stay informed about your content’s expiry and never miss a critical update.

Display Expiry Dates in Your Content

PublishPress Future allows you to automatically show expiry or action dates within your articles. This feature adds a date stamp at the bottom of your post.

You can also use customizable shortcodes to display the expiration date inside your posts, tailoring the format to meet your specific needs.

Expiry Defaults for Post Types

The plugin not only lets you customize default expiry options for each post type within your WordPress site, but you can also configure default expiry settings for all of your content.

Advanced Features & Detailed Logs

The Pro version of the plugin offers additional functionalities, such as moving posts to a custom status upon expiration and keeps a comprehensive log of all changes made to your posts.

Seamless Cron Job Integration

WP-CRON is a built-in feature of WordPress used to schedule recurring tasks, such as publishing scheduled posts or processing queued tasks in plugins.

PublishPress Future uses custom cron jobs to execute expiration events efficiently, reducing server overhead for busy websites. To fully leverage the plugin’s capabilities, make sure that WP-CRON is properly set up and functional on your web host.

More details: PublishPress Future

Note: When using plugins that require WP-CRON, it’s essential to monitor the performance and resource usage of your site, as WP-CRON can consume significant resources when running heavy or frequent tasks.

If you notice performance issues, you may need to optimize the plugin settings, offload tasks to external services, or use a real server-side cron job to improve efficiency and prevent performance degradation on your hosting account.

If your sites run on WPMU DEV hosting,  rest assured that any WordPress plugins that require WP-CRON will run just fine.Learn more about our hosting

For the best experience running plugins that require WP-CRON functionality, consult the WPMU DEV support team to ensure your website is running optimally on your selected hosting plan.

Auto Post Expiration

Auto Post Expiration is another plugin you can use to easily set expiration dates for your posts in WordPress.

With just a few clicks, you can schedule posts to automatically change to “draft” status, ensuring they are no longer visible on the front end of your site.

Key features of this plugin include:

Set Post Expiration Date and Time

The plugin provides an intuitive feature that lets you easily select the desired date and time for your posts to expire and transition to the “draft” status.

Admin Column Display

Auto Post Expiration shows the expiration date and post status directly in the admin column, making it easy to stay organized and keep track of when posts are scheduled to expire.

Gutenberg and Classic Editor Support

The plugin seamlessly integrates with the block and classic editors, so you can use your preferred editing interface when creating or editing posts.

The plugin also offers a Pro version that lets you unlock advanced features, such as setting expiration dates for single posts, pages, products, and custom post types, WooCommerce Support (set expiration dates for your WooCommerce products), and email notifications for Admin.

More info: Auto Post Expiration

From Inspired Content To Expired Posts

Hopefully, this article has inspired you to use expired posts. Auto expiring posts can help you streamline your content management processes, control the lifespan of your content, and keep your website current, fresh, and relevant to enhance user experience.

For complete WordPress automation, consider becoming a WPMU DEV member. Our all-in-one WordPress platform is ideal for web developers and agencies and includes robust site management tools and Pro plugins that will automate all aspects of your WordPress sites.

Looking for the best free tools for quick and easy WordPress troubleshooting? Here are 25 site-saving tools our support team use every day to troubleshoot and fix issues on thousands of WordPress sites.

WPMU DEV’s support team handles an average of almost 10,000 support requests each month from members via live chat and forums, and over 75% of all the support tickets we receive involve troubleshooting WordPress sites.

Given the volume of support requests we receive and the urgent need to resolve issues for our members as quickly and effectively as possible, our support team has built up quite a list of useful WordPress troubleshooting tools…and most of them are free to use!

Bookmark this handy and helpful resource – it will help you become your clients’ all-time WordPress hero!

Keep reading to learn about all these useful tools or click on a link to go directly to the tool’s description and link.

• MxToolbox
• httpstatus.io
• Temp-Mail
• Tempail
• MailTrap
• MailHardener
• ipinfo.io
• ifconfig
• SQL Queries to Change WordPress Website Domain
• DNSChecker
• WhatsMyDNS
• SecurityTrails
• SSLChecker
• Why No Padlock?
• GiftOfSpeed
• Domsignal
• GZIP Compression Checker
• xBrowserSync
• Broken Link Checker
• Uptimeo
• Uptrends
• New Relic
• Uploading Plugins To Hub Connected Sites
• Payment Testing
• Gists

MxToolbox

MxToolbox offers a comprehensive set of tools to manage email configuration and troubleshoot email issues for improved email delivery.

The integrated tool provides diagnostics for MX records, DNS, blacklists, and SMTP. By inputting a domain name or IP address, you can access relevant tools and information, along with a chronological history of results.

The tool covers various checks, including reputation blacklists, SMTP server testing, MX records, SPF records, DNS A records, and more. Additionally, you can perform tasks such as domain registration lookup, IP address block information, TCP and HTTP connection verification, ping, trace route, and DNS server checks.

Check it out here: MxToolbox

httpstatus.io

httpstatus.io is a free tool for checking HTTP status codes, response headers, and redirect chains of a server in response to a URL request. It allows you to check bulk URLs and analyze and export the results.

The tool offers flexibility in modifying HTTP request settings, such as changing the User Agent, sending server authentication credentials, and adding custom headers, and helps troubleshoot issues like redirect chains, which can impact site performance, SEO, and user experience.

httpstatus.io also provides features like a redirect checker, customizable request headers, filters for sorting results, data export options, and identification of redirect latency issues.

The tool allows easy input of up to 100 URLs for checking status codes and redirect chains in one go, making it convenient for troubleshooting multiple WordPress sites.

Check it out here: httpstatus.io

Temp-Mail

Temp-Mail is a free throwaway email service that provides temporary and disposable email addresses.

Disposable email addresses are useful for troubleshooting sites, testing purposes, and protecting your business email from spam lists. They help keep your mailbox clean, protect against hacking attempts and spam, maintain anonymity, and are commonly used for registering on WordPress sites, forums, Wi-Fi networks, and online services.

Features of temp-mail.org include easy creation of temporary email addresses, no registration or personal information required, multiple email addresses available, temporary email storage for received messages, and the ability to generate random or choose specific email addresses.

Check it out this tool here: Temp-Mail

Tempail

Another temporary email address service we use to send notifications or test emails is Tempail.

Tempail’s temporary mail addresses expire after 1 hour and can be used to sign up to websites, social media, and read incoming emails.

Visit the website: Tempail

Postman

Postman provides a comprehensive set of tools for designing, testing, documenting, mocking, and discovering APIs.

The Postman API client is a foundational tool that lets you explore, debug, and test your APIs. It supports various API request types, including HTTP, REST, SOAP, GraphQL, and WebSockets.

The API client automatically detects response language, links, and formats for easy inspection, provides built-in support for authentication protocols (e.g. OAuth 1.2/2.0, AWS Signature, and Hawk), lets you organize requests into reusable collections, include JavaScript code to connect requests or automate workflows, and use scripting capabilities to visualize API responses as charts and graphs for better analysis.

For more info, go here: Postman

MailTrap

MailTrap’s Email Testing tool makes a Sandbox SMTP server so you can use it to ‘send’ emails and they get ‘trapped’ by the SMTP server.

It creates individual testing environments for capturing and analyzing SMTP traffic, making it easy to test emails from staging and development environments.

Mailtrap also allows you to create individual inboxes, organize testing data, and manage email activity for different aspects of your WordPress site. The tool offers a Testing API for automating test flows and scenarios, and facilitates collaboration by enabling you to share test emails with your team, manage access to inboxes, and send selected test emails to whitelisted recipients.

You can view messages, check spam scores, validate headers, and analyze HTML support across different email clients for comprehensive email content and source analysis.

More info: MailTrap Email Sandbox

Mailhardener

We use Mailhardener to test email-related DNS records, but there are many reasons to consider using this tool.

For example, Mailhardener enhances email security, prevents fraud, and improves deliverability for WordPress sites.

It also:

• Maximizes email security standards to combat fraud, impersonation, interception, and censorship.
• Enables management of policies for email senders, actively monitoring email traffic and blocking fraudulent activity.
• Facilitates secure email transport through encryption and digital signatures.
• Includes email security features to improve deliverability by increasing trustworthiness in the eyes of spam filters.
• Provides visibility into email security results, helping identify areas for improvement and fine-tuning deliverability strategies.

Note: Mailhardener is a paid service, but it offers a free version for personal or evaluation use, allowing one domain with up to one month of data retention..

Learn more here: Mailhardener

ipinfo.io

ipinfo.io consolidates IP data in one place, offering valuable insights for troubleshooting WordPress sites.

Key features of this tool include include geolocation lookup, IP range analysis, privacy detection, company lookup, ASN details, hosted domains, mobile carrier detection, abuse contact information, and IP Whois records.

Benefits of using ipinfo.io for troubleshooting WordPress sites include:

• Streamlined analysis with a comprehensive suite of tools and APIs.
• Enhanced security by identifying potential threats and taking appropriate measures.
• Improved performance by optimizing network connectivity and addressing dependencies.
• Personalization and targeting based on geolocation and mobile carrier data.
• Reliable email deliverability through email security monitoring and improvements.
• Efficient troubleshooting with access to accurate and comprehensive IP data.

Check out the tool here: ipinfo.io

ifconfig

ifconfig is another tool you can use to check IP addresses and get information, such as geolocation, country, ISP, or organization.

It’s also a helpful tool for uncovering network bottlenecks or connectivity issues, combatting spam comments, malicious registrations, and abuse on sites, making informed decisions on blocking or whitelisting specific IP addresses, and gaining insights into website visitor sources.

SQL Queries to Change WordPress Website Domain

SQL Queries is a great time-saving tool is for moving WordPress websites from one domain to another. Just generate the queries and run them in MySQL.

DNSChecker

Understanding DNS propagation is crucial, as it takes time for DNS changes to propagate worldwide.

DNSChecker offers a free DNS propagation check service to verify if DNS records have propagated across multiple DNS servers worldwide.

The tool collects data from over 100 global DNS servers and presents results in an easy-to-understand format. Results are visually represented on a map, with green ticks indicating availability of DNS records and crosses symbolizing unavailability.

DNSChecker.org supports checking A, AAAA, CNAME, and additional DNS records for their propagation status. It also allows customization by adding custom DNS servers and performing checks based on IP, continent, and country. Detailed DNS record lookups enable troubleshooting of specific record-related issues.

To use the tool, go here: DNSChecker

WhatsMyDNS

WhatsMyDNS is another DNS propagation checker you can use.

The tool lets you instantly perform a DNS lookup to check a domain name’s current IP address and DNS record information against multiple nameservers located in different parts of the world.

SecurityTrails

SecurityTrails helps prevent infrastructure hijacking, identify hidden information on websites, and track domain history.

Our support team uses it to view a site’s historical DNS records. For example, let’s say that when moving a domain from one nameserver to another you forget to copy over a DNS record. If the record is not masked (this is generally done by cloudflare on purpose), then it should be visible on securitytrails.com

Key features include DNS record history, domain historical WHOIS data, domain names database, website technologies identification, passive DNS datasets, instant IP and domain search, hostname information exploration, and tagging for efficient searches.

The tool provides an API for fetching domain, DNS, and IP-related data, real-time intelligence, and a user-friendly interface.

A free account shows you the full DNS history for any domain.

Other benefits of using this tool include:

• Prevent hijacking of IT infrastructure through DNS manipulation.
• Identify hidden information on websites.
• Identify previous hosting companies using historical DNS information.
• Check domains past nameserver & MX record history.
• Find the real IP address of a website behind Cloudflare.

Note: some of the items listed above require a premium account.

For more details about this tool, go here: SecurityTrails

SSL Checker

SSL Checker is a free tool from SSL Shopper that helps verify the correct installation, validity, trustworthiness, and error-free status of SSL certificates on web servers. This ensures that users’ browsers won’t display untrusted warnings, maintaining a seamless browsing experience.

The tool performs comprehensive SSL certificate verification, checking the SSL connection and providing clear results on the certificate’s status.

The SSL Checker tool confirms the correct hostname inclusion in the certificate, checks for other potential issues, such as outdated hash functions, to ensure SSL security is up to date, and includes an expiration date reminder feature to facilitate timely renewal.

Check it out here: SSL Checker

Why No Padlock?

Why No Padlock? is an alternative to using the SSL Checker tool described above. It is a powerful tool that checks if SSL is valid, helps identify the source of insecure content elements on SSL pages in WordPress, and provides information about the issuing company of the SSL certificate.

The tool verifies SSL certificate validity, checks for proper installation of intermediate chain certificates to prevent false security indicators, and matches the URL with the certificate domain. It also generates a detailed report on insecure calls to images, CSS, and JavaScript, SSL certificate validation, secure resource loading, insecure calls with referrer information, and third-party SSL certificate validation.

WhyNoPadlock.com is compatible with various eCommerce platforms, including ShopSite, Magento, and WooCommerce.

More info: WhyNoPadlock.com

GiftOfSpeed

GiftOfSpeed provides tool to identify and help resolve speed-related issues.

Tools include compression tests, image optimization, caching evaluation, CSS and JavaScript compression, HTTP request checking, keep-alive testing, and more.

Benefits of using GiftOfSpeed.com’s tools for troubleshooting WordPress sites include:

• Improved page speed and user experience.
• Enhanced search engine rankings.
• Reduction in file sizes without compromising quality.
• Minimization of unnecessary elements and line breaks.
• Identification and removal of broken links and unoptimized images.

Learn more about this tool here: GiftOfSpeed.com

Domsignal

Domsignal offers an extensive range of free tools to help you test, troubleshoot, and enhance the performance, security, and SEO of WordPress sites.

Testing tools include Secure Headers Test, TLS Scanner, Referrer-Policy Test, Secure Cookie Test, HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) test, TTFB Test, HTTP Headers Checker, X-Frame-Options Test, MIME Sniffing Test, and many other powerful tools.

One tool we use in particular is Domsignal’s mixed content testing tool, which helps identify and locate mixed content issues in WordPress sites.

Mixed content refers to web pages that request elements over non-secure connections despite being served securely. Mixed content can compromise website security and trigger browser warnings, leading to decreased trust and potential loss of web traffic.

Resolving mixed content involves updating URLs to use secure protocols (HTTPS) and contacting resource providers for HTTPS availability or alternatives.

This tool streamlines the troubleshooting process, enabling the maintenance of a secure and trustworthy website for visitors.

For more information, go here: Check Mixed Content

GZIP Compression Checker

GZIP Compression Checker is a fast and easy-to-use tool that provides detailed results on whether gzip compression is enabled on your web server.

Gzip compression reduces page size, leading to faster loading and display. The tool is free, with no hidden costs. Enabling gzip compression is straightforward, with default settings in Apache’s mod-deflate module or configurable options in IIS. Remember to back up server settings before making any changes.

xBrowserSync

xBrowserSync offers a privacy-focused alternative to traditional browser syncing services provided by tech giants like Google, Firefox, and Opera.

It prioritizes data control and privacy, allowing users to regain control of their data and ensure anonymity, enhances productivity by adding descriptions, tags, and an intuitive search interface to native browser bookmarks, and offers backup and restore functionality to prevent data loss.

The tool includes a desktop browser web extension and a mobile app for Android users.

Check it out here: xBrowserSync

Broken Link Checker

Broken links can harm SEO, user experience, and site health.

Broken Link Checker is a fast and accurate tool for WordPress that helps monitor and detect broken links, and resolve them quickly.

The plugin scans deeply and frequently, covering external and internal links, images, and redirects. It is 20x faster than other plugins and provides detailed results.

Broken Link Checker offers two link checking engines: a cloud-based engine for speed, unlimited scanning, and management of multiple sites, and a local engine that uses site/server resources. The plugin allows manual or scheduled scans, editing or unlinking broken links, detailed reports, email notifications, advanced search filtering, and export options.

Uptime

Understanding if your site is down helps in troubleshooting and identifying potential issues like DNS problems, internet backbone failures, or network congestion.

Uptime can be accessed from The Hub. Our team uses Uptime reports to see how long a site has been offline when errors are reported.

Uptrends

Uptrends provides a free website uptime tool that lets you check the availability of your website from over 40 worldwide locations. Each checkpoint sends a request to your site, tracks the response time, and generates a report.

The tool provides green or red tiles indicating site availability, along with test duration and detailed timing information. A red status across all checkpoints indicates significant problems like DDoS attacks, hosting provider outages, or hardware malfunctions.

New Relic (WPMU DEV Hosted Sites)

Our support team uses New Relic to quickly identify and address performance issues on WordPress sites hosted with WPMU DEV.

WPMU DEV hosting plans include free integration with New Relic and their free plan is sufficient for troubleshooting analysis.

Uploading Plugins To Hub Connected Sites

Being able to upload plugins to any site connected to The Hub, even via ZIP or public/Dropbox/GDrive link, is useful, since the zip method allows for multiple plugin zips to be uploaded.

This method is useful for testing plugins if you have the latest version of a premium plugin .zip file but for some reason you are unable to update the plugin from the WordPress admin.

Payment Testing

Sandboxes provide a testing environment that simulates the behavior of actual payment gateways without processing real transactions. Testing payment forms using Stripe and PayPal sandboxes ensures that integrations with payment gateways is functioning correctly.

We use Stripe and Paypal sandboxes to test payment forms (e.g. Forminator).

For more information about setting up sandbox accounts for Stripe and PayPal and instructions on integrating and testing payment forms with their sandboxes, go here: Stripe Sandbox | PayPal Sandbox

Gists

In addition to the above tools, we also use GitHub Gists to create custom snippets that help support team members save time running various scripts when troubleshooting WordPress sites.

Gists offer a convenient method for sharing code snippets with others. Each gist is a Git repository, allowing it to be easily forked and cloned. When you create a gist while logged in to GitHub, it becomes associated with your account and appears in your list of gists on your gist home page.

Gists can be either public or secret. Public gists are displayed in the Discover section, enabling people to explore recently created gists. They are also searchable, making them suitable if you want others to discover and view your work.

WordPress Site Troubleshooting – DIY Or Use WPMU DEV’s Support?

Hopefully, the list of tools we have provided here will help you diagnose and troubleshoot issues on your clients’ WordPress sites more quickly and effectively (remember to bookmark this article, so you have this list handy!)

These tools, however, are only a small part of what it takes to keep WordPress sites running error-free and without problems. Managing WordPress sites effectively requires continually and proactively staying on top of performance issues to ensure a smooth user experience.

If you are a WPMU DEV member, why not let our support team handle it all for you so you can focus on growing your business?

WPMU DEV’s all-in-one WordPress platform is designed to help WordPress developers better manage their client sites. This includes providing world-class and affordable hosting services with a built-in suite of professional plugins and tools to ensure optimal site performance, and 24/7 access to the expertise of an entire support team with the knowledge and skills to resolve problems on WordPress sites quickly and effectively.

Looking for the best free tools for quick and easy WordPress troubleshooting? Here are 25 site-saving tools our support team use every day to troubleshoot and fix issues on thousands of WordPress sites.

WPMU DEV’s support team handles an average of almost 10,000 support requests each month from members via live chat and forums, and over 75% of all the support tickets we receive involve troubleshooting WordPress sites.

Given the volume of support requests we receive and the urgent need to resolve issues for our members as quickly and effectively as possible, our support team has built up quite a list of useful WordPress troubleshooting tools…and most of them are free to use!

Bookmark this handy and helpful resource – it will help you become your clients’ all-time WordPress hero!

Keep reading to learn about all these useful tools or click on a link to go directly to the tool’s description and link.

• MxToolbox
• httpstatus.io
• Temp-Mail
• Tempail
• MailTrap
• MailHardener
• ipinfo.io
• ifconfig
• SQL Queries to Change WordPress Website Domain
• DNSChecker
• WhatsMyDNS
• SecurityTrails
• SSLChecker
• Why No Padlock?
• GiftOfSpeed
• Domsignal
• GZIP Compression Checker
• xBrowserSync
• Broken Link Checker
• Uptime
• Uptrends
• New Relic
• Uploading Plugins To Hub Connected Sites
• Payment Testing
• Gists

MxToolbox

MxToolbox offers a comprehensive set of tools to manage email configuration and troubleshoot email issues for improved email delivery.

The integrated tool provides diagnostics for MX records, DNS, blacklists, and SMTP. By inputting a domain name or IP address, you can access relevant tools and information, along with a chronological history of results.

The tool covers various checks, including reputation blacklists, SMTP server testing, MX records, SPF records, DNS A records, and more. Additionally, you can perform tasks such as domain registration lookup, IP address block information, TCP and HTTP connection verification, ping, trace route, and DNS server checks.

Check it out here: MxToolbox

httpstatus.io

httpstatus.io is a free tool for checking HTTP status codes, response headers, and redirect chains of a server in response to a URL request. It allows you to check bulk URLs and analyze and export the results.

The tool offers flexibility in modifying HTTP request settings, such as changing the User Agent, sending server authentication credentials, and adding custom headers, and helps troubleshoot issues like redirect chains, which can impact site performance, SEO, and user experience.

httpstatus.io also provides features like a redirect checker, customizable request headers, filters for sorting results, data export options, and identification of redirect latency issues.

The tool allows easy input of up to 100 URLs for checking status codes and redirect chains in one go, making it convenient for troubleshooting multiple WordPress sites.

Check it out here: httpstatus.io

Temp-Mail

Temp-Mail is a free throwaway email service that provides temporary and disposable email addresses.

Disposable email addresses are useful for troubleshooting sites, testing purposes, and protecting your business email from spam lists. They help keep your mailbox clean, protect against hacking attempts and spam, maintain anonymity, and are commonly used for registering on WordPress sites, forums, Wi-Fi networks, and online services.

Features of temp-mail.org include easy creation of temporary email addresses, no registration or personal information required, multiple email addresses available, temporary email storage for received messages, and the ability to generate random or choose specific email addresses.

Check it out this tool here: Temp-Mail

Tempail

Another temporary email address service we use to send notifications or test emails is Tempail.

Tempail’s temporary mail addresses expire after 1 hour and can be used to sign up to websites, social media, and read incoming emails.

Visit the website: Tempail

Postman

Postman provides a comprehensive set of tools for designing, testing, documenting, mocking, and discovering APIs.

The Postman API client is a foundational tool that lets you explore, debug, and test your APIs. It supports various API request types, including HTTP, REST, SOAP, GraphQL, and WebSockets.

The API client automatically detects response language, links, and formats for easy inspection, provides built-in support for authentication protocols (e.g. OAuth 1.2/2.0, AWS Signature, and Hawk), lets you organize requests into reusable collections, include JavaScript code to connect requests or automate workflows, and use scripting capabilities to visualize API responses as charts and graphs for better analysis.

For more info, go here: Postman

MailTrap

MailTrap’s Email Testing tool makes a Sandbox SMTP server so you can use it to ‘send’ emails and they get ‘trapped’ by the SMTP server.

It creates individual testing environments for capturing and analyzing SMTP traffic, making it easy to test emails from staging and development environments.

Mailtrap also allows you to create individual inboxes, organize testing data, and manage email activity for different aspects of your WordPress site. The tool offers a Testing API for automating test flows and scenarios, and facilitates collaboration by enabling you to share test emails with your team, manage access to inboxes, and send selected test emails to whitelisted recipients.

You can view messages, check spam scores, validate headers, and analyze HTML support across different email clients for comprehensive email content and source analysis.

More info: MailTrap Email Sandbox

Mailhardener

We use Mailhardener to test email-related DNS records, but there are many reasons to consider using this tool.

For example, Mailhardener enhances email security, prevents fraud, and improves deliverability for WordPress sites.

It also:

• Maximizes email security standards to combat fraud, impersonation, interception, and censorship.
• Enables management of policies for email senders, actively monitoring email traffic and blocking fraudulent activity.
• Facilitates secure email transport through encryption and digital signatures.
• Includes email security features to improve deliverability by increasing trustworthiness in the eyes of spam filters.
• Provides visibility into email security results, helping identify areas for improvement and fine-tuning deliverability strategies.

Note: Mailhardener is a paid service, but it offers a free version for personal or evaluation use, allowing one domain with up to one month of data retention..

Learn more here: Mailhardener

ipinfo.io

ipinfo.io consolidates IP data in one place, offering valuable insights for troubleshooting WordPress sites.

Key features of this tool include include geolocation lookup, IP range analysis, privacy detection, company lookup, ASN details, hosted domains, mobile carrier detection, abuse contact information, and IP Whois records.

Benefits of using ipinfo.io for troubleshooting WordPress sites include:

• Streamlined analysis with a comprehensive suite of tools and APIs.
• Enhanced security by identifying potential threats and taking appropriate measures.
• Improved performance by optimizing network connectivity and addressing dependencies.
• Personalization and targeting based on geolocation and mobile carrier data.
• Reliable email deliverability through email security monitoring and improvements.
• Efficient troubleshooting with access to accurate and comprehensive IP data.

Check out the tool here: ipinfo.io

ifconfig

ifconfig is another tool you can use to check IP addresses and get information, such as geolocation, country, ISP, or organization.

It’s also a helpful tool for uncovering network bottlenecks or connectivity issues, combatting spam comments, malicious registrations, and abuse on sites, making informed decisions on blocking or whitelisting specific IP addresses, and gaining insights into website visitor sources.

SQL Queries to Change WordPress Website Domain

SQL Queries is a great time-saving tool is for moving WordPress websites from one domain to another. Just generate the queries and run them in MySQL.

DNSChecker

Understanding DNS propagation is crucial, as it takes time for DNS changes to propagate worldwide.

DNSChecker offers a free DNS propagation check service to verify if DNS records have propagated across multiple DNS servers worldwide.

The tool collects data from over 100 global DNS servers and presents results in an easy-to-understand format. Results are visually represented on a map, with green ticks indicating availability of DNS records and crosses symbolizing unavailability.

DNSChecker.org supports checking A, AAAA, CNAME, and additional DNS records for their propagation status. It also allows customization by adding custom DNS servers and performing checks based on IP, continent, and country. Detailed DNS record lookups enable troubleshooting of specific record-related issues.

To use the tool, go here: DNSChecker

WhatsMyDNS

WhatsMyDNS is another DNS propagation checker you can use.

The tool lets you instantly perform a DNS lookup to check a domain name’s current IP address and DNS record information against multiple nameservers located in different parts of the world.

SecurityTrails

SecurityTrails helps prevent infrastructure hijacking, identify hidden information on websites, and track domain history.

Our support team uses it to view a site’s historical DNS records. For example, let’s say that when moving a domain from one nameserver to another you forget to copy over a DNS record. If the record is not masked (this is generally done by cloudflare on purpose), then it should be visible on securitytrails.com

Key features include DNS record history, domain historical WHOIS data, domain names database, website technologies identification, passive DNS datasets, instant IP and domain search, hostname information exploration, and tagging for efficient searches.

The tool provides an API for fetching domain, DNS, and IP-related data, real-time intelligence, and a user-friendly interface.

A free account shows you the full DNS history for any domain.

Other benefits of using this tool include:

• Prevent hijacking of IT infrastructure through DNS manipulation.
• Identify hidden information on websites.
• Identify previous hosting companies using historical DNS information.
• Check domains past nameserver & MX record history.
• Find the real IP address of a website behind Cloudflare.

Note: some of the items listed above require a premium account.

For more details about this tool, go here: SecurityTrails

SSL Checker

SSL Checker is a free tool from SSL Shopper that helps verify the correct installation, validity, trustworthiness, and error-free status of SSL certificates on web servers. This ensures that users’ browsers won’t display untrusted warnings, maintaining a seamless browsing experience.

The tool performs comprehensive SSL certificate verification, checking the SSL connection and providing clear results on the certificate’s status.

The SSL Checker tool confirms the correct hostname inclusion in the certificate, checks for other potential issues, such as outdated hash functions, to ensure SSL security is up to date, and includes an expiration date reminder feature to facilitate timely renewal.

Check it out here: SSL Checker

Why No Padlock?

Why No Padlock? is an alternative to using the SSL Checker tool described above. It is a powerful tool that checks if SSL is valid, helps identify the source of insecure content elements on SSL pages in WordPress, and provides information about the issuing company of the SSL certificate.

The tool verifies SSL certificate validity, checks for proper installation of intermediate chain certificates to prevent false security indicators, and matches the URL with the certificate domain. It also generates a detailed report on insecure calls to images, CSS, and JavaScript, SSL certificate validation, secure resource loading, insecure calls with referrer information, and third-party SSL certificate validation.

WhyNoPadlock.com is compatible with various eCommerce platforms, including ShopSite, Magento, and WooCommerce.

More info: WhyNoPadlock.com

GiftOfSpeed

GiftOfSpeed provides tool to identify and help resolve speed-related issues.

Tools include compression tests, image optimization, caching evaluation, CSS and JavaScript compression, HTTP request checking, keep-alive testing, and more.

Benefits of using GiftOfSpeed.com’s tools for troubleshooting WordPress sites include:

• Improved page speed and user experience.
• Enhanced search engine rankings.
• Reduction in file sizes without compromising quality.
• Minimization of unnecessary elements and line breaks.
• Identification and removal of broken links and unoptimized images.

Learn more about this tool here: GiftOfSpeed.com

Domsignal

Domsignal offers an extensive range of free tools to help you test, troubleshoot, and enhance the performance, security, and SEO of WordPress sites.

Testing tools include Secure Headers Test, TLS Scanner, Referrer-Policy Test, Secure Cookie Test, HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) test, TTFB Test, HTTP Headers Checker, X-Frame-Options Test, MIME Sniffing Test, and many other powerful tools.

One tool we use in particular is Domsignal’s mixed content testing tool, which helps identify and locate mixed content issues in WordPress sites.

Mixed content refers to web pages that request elements over non-secure connections despite being served securely. Mixed content can compromise website security and trigger browser warnings, leading to decreased trust and potential loss of web traffic.

Resolving mixed content involves updating URLs to use secure protocols (HTTPS) and contacting resource providers for HTTPS availability or alternatives.

This tool streamlines the troubleshooting process, enabling the maintenance of a secure and trustworthy website for visitors.

For more information, go here: Check Mixed Content

GZIP Compression Checker

GZIP Compression Checker is a fast and easy-to-use tool that provides detailed results on whether gzip compression is enabled on your web server.

Gzip compression reduces page size, leading to faster loading and display. The tool is free, with no hidden costs. Enabling gzip compression is straightforward, with default settings in Apache’s mod-deflate module or configurable options in IIS. Remember to back up server settings before making any changes.

xBrowserSync

xBrowserSync offers a privacy-focused alternative to traditional browser syncing services provided by tech giants like Google, Firefox, and Opera.

It prioritizes data control and privacy, allowing users to regain control of their data and ensure anonymity, enhances productivity by adding descriptions, tags, and an intuitive search interface to native browser bookmarks, and offers backup and restore functionality to prevent data loss.

The tool includes a desktop browser web extension and a mobile app for Android users.

Check it out here: xBrowserSync

Broken Link Checker

Broken links can harm SEO, user experience, and site health.

Broken Link Checker is a fast and accurate tool for WordPress that helps monitor and detect broken links, and resolve them quickly.

The plugin scans deeply and frequently, covering external and internal links, images, and redirects. It is 20x faster than other plugins and provides detailed results.

Broken Link Checker offers two link checking engines: a cloud-based engine for speed, unlimited scanning, and management of multiple sites, and a local engine that uses site/server resources. The plugin allows manual or scheduled scans, editing or unlinking broken links, detailed reports, email notifications, advanced search filtering, and export options.

Uptime

Understanding if your site is down helps in troubleshooting and identifying potential issues like DNS problems, internet backbone failures, or network congestion.

Uptime can be accessed from The Hub. Our team uses Uptime reports to see how long a site has been offline when errors are reported.

Uptrends

Uptrends provides a free website uptime tool that lets you check the availability of your website from over 40 worldwide locations. Each checkpoint sends a request to your site, tracks the response time, and generates a report.

The tool provides green or red tiles indicating site availability, along with test duration and detailed timing information. A red status across all checkpoints indicates significant problems like DDoS attacks, hosting provider outages, or hardware malfunctions.

New Relic (WPMU DEV Hosted Sites)

Our support team uses New Relic to quickly identify and address performance issues on WordPress sites hosted with WPMU DEV.

WPMU DEV hosting plans include free integration with New Relic and their free plan is sufficient for troubleshooting analysis.

Uploading Plugins To Hub Connected Sites

Being able to upload plugins to any site connected to The Hub, even via ZIP or public/Dropbox/GDrive link, is useful, since the zip method allows for multiple plugin zips to be uploaded.

This method is useful for testing plugins if you have the latest version of a premium plugin .zip file but for some reason you are unable to update the plugin from the WordPress admin.

Payment Testing

Sandboxes provide a testing environment that simulates the behavior of actual payment gateways without processing real transactions. Testing payment forms using Stripe and PayPal sandboxes ensures that integrations with payment gateways is functioning correctly.

We use Stripe and Paypal sandboxes to test payment forms (e.g. Forminator).

For more information about setting up sandbox accounts for Stripe and PayPal and instructions on integrating and testing payment forms with their sandboxes, go here: Stripe Sandbox | PayPal Sandbox

Gists

In addition to the above tools, we also use GitHub Gists to create custom snippets that help support team members save time running various scripts when troubleshooting WordPress sites.

Gists offer a convenient method for sharing code snippets with others. Each gist is a Git repository, allowing it to be easily forked and cloned. When you create a gist while logged in to GitHub, it becomes associated with your account and appears in your list of gists on your gist home page.

Gists can be either public or secret. Public gists are displayed in the Discover section, enabling people to explore recently created gists. They are also searchable, making them suitable if you want others to discover and view your work.

WordPress Site Troubleshooting – DIY Or Use WPMU DEV’s Support?

Hopefully, the list of tools we have provided here will help you diagnose and troubleshoot issues on your clients’ WordPress sites more quickly and effectively (remember to bookmark this article, so you have this list handy!)

These tools, however, are only a small part of what it takes to keep WordPress sites running error-free and without problems. Managing WordPress sites effectively requires continually and proactively staying on top of performance issues to ensure a smooth user experience.

If you are a WPMU DEV member, why not let our support team handle it all for you so you can focus on growing your business?

WPMU DEV’s all-in-one WordPress platform is designed to help WordPress developers better manage their client sites. This includes providing world-class and affordable hosting services with a built-in suite of professional plugins and tools to ensure optimal site performance, and 24/7 access to the expertise of an entire support team with the knowledge and skills to resolve problems on WordPress sites quickly and effectively.

Can AI turn non-coders into pro WordPress plugin developers? To find out, we asked ChatGPT to build a custom WordPress plugin from scratch and then had our crack team of developers examine the code…

AI is the world’s most popular two-letter word right now. With all the recent news headlines about whether AI will take our jobs away, we wanted to know… can ChatGPT actually develop a functional and useful WordPress plugin without having to write code from scratch? And does the plugin meet best coding practices?

Fortunately, WPMU DEV builds some of the most robust WordPress plugins in the world, so we have plenty of expert WordPress plugin developers who can put ChatGPT to the test.

In fact, if you take a stroll around our company’s virtual corridors, you can’t help but bump into WordPress coders and developers. It seems everyone around here can look at a WordPress plugin and see PHP the way Neo sees the Matrix’s digital rain code.

Everyone, that is …except me!

I’m just a blog writer with no coding skills and a burning desire to add “prompt engineer” to my resumé.

So, in this post, we’ll explore how to leverage the power of ChatGPT to build a simple custom WordPress plugin quickly and securely, even if you lack extensive coding skills.

We’ll do this by:

1) Asking ChatGPT to generate the code for a useful plugin that we can test, and

2) Running the code generated by ChatGPT past our team of professional plugin developers so they can review it and provide their honest feedback.

We’ll cover the following:

• Exploring the Power of ChatGPT for WordPress Plugin Development
• Define Your Plugin’s Functionality
• Generate Code Snippets with ChatGPT
• Set Up Your Test Site
• Test Your Custom Plugin
• Feedback from Our Expert Plugin Developers
• Can ChatGPT Turn You Into a WordPress Plugin Developer?

Exploring the Power of ChatGPT for WordPress Plugin Development

One of the reasons WordPress is the world’s most popular content management system is the software’s flexibility and extensibility to create sites that can do anything and everything using plugins.

While there are over 60,000 free WordPress plugins available covering every type of functionality you can imagine, sometimes you may need a custom solution to meet a client’s specific requirements.

If you’re not a WordPress plugin developer, then until recently, your only options were to either become a WordPress plugin developer and learn how to code a plugin from scratch or modify an existing plugin’s code, or hire a WordPress developer to do this for you.

With the explosion of new AI tools and technologies, we now have a third option, which while not necessarily promising to do things better, can help you get things done cheaper and faster (check out our recent article on ways that ChatGPT can help you as a WordPress developer).

ChatGPT, powered by OpenAI, is an advanced language model capable of generating human-like text based on given prompts. It also claims to be able to assist you in the process of building custom WordPress plugins by providing code snippets, explanations, and even recommendations for best practices.

So, we wanted to find out for ourselves if we can leverage ChatGPT to accelerate the WordPress plugin development process and ensure the security of your plugins.

To do this, we’ll ask ChatGPT to build us a simple, useful, and functional plugin.

Define Your Plugin’s Functionality

Before using ChatGPT to generate code, you need to have a clear understanding of the functionality you want your plugin to provide.

This starts by outlining the specific features, actions, or modifications you want to achieve with your plugin. This will then help you generate accurate prompts for ChatGPT and ensure that your AI-generated code aligns with your desired outcomes.

Generate Code Snippets with ChatGPT

To generate our code snippets using ChatGPT, we’ll keep things simple (and free) and use the freely available interface provided by OpenAI.

Take #1…

Note: My first attempt at using ChatGPT to create a WordPress plugin from scratch was way too ambitious. I asked ChatGPT to build me a simple WordPress time-travel dummy text generating plugin, using the prompt below…

As someone who spends a lot of time writing WordPress tutorials, I often need dummy content to test plugins, create screenshots, etc.

So, I thought it would be great to model my AI-generated dummy content plugin on a plugin I often use called FakerPress.

ChatGPT immediately pushed back on my request and told me that creating a fully functional WordPress plugin with all the features I described was beyond the scope of a single response.

However, it did offer to provide me with a basic template, guide me on how to implement some of the features I mentioned, and even gave me instructions on how to create a plugin directory and file…

At first, I thought there was light at the end of the tunnel. ChatGPT output code that looked quite impressive to my untrained eyes and unskilled mind…

ChatGPT also output all the additional code required to complete the next steps.

And it apologized for my lack of coding knowledge and experience…

It also guided me with step-by-step instructions, just like it had promised…

I can’t really describe what I felt seeing ChatGPT spit out the code, but it’s probably similar to what Bill Gates must have felt when he first held a set of floppy disks containing the working code for the Windows operating system.

Set Up Your Test Site

With the plugin code generated, the next step was to set up a dummy site to test the plugin.

I quickly spun a new site in The Hub.

Note: If you are developing a plugin for an existing site, we recommend setting up a local development environment or a staging site to ensure that the plugin works as intended and does not conflict with other existing plugins or themes on the site.

After drumming my fingers on my desk for a few minutes, my new WordPress site was ready.

With the test site set up, the next step was to upload the plugin and test to make sure it works.

Test Your Custom Plugin

I followed ChatGPT’s instructions and uploaded the plugin folder to the wp-content > plugins directory of my test site using The Hub’s file manager.

With the plugin file uploaded, I activated it inside the Plugins screen.

And…I got a fatal error!

Assuming that maybe I didn’t add the additional snippets that ChatGPT provided correctly, I went back and asked for all the code to be provided as a single file that I could simply copy and paste to overwrite and update the uploaded plugin file.

ChatGPT obliged and delivered me the complete code.

There was a lot of code to output, so every time things came to a standstill, I instructed ChatGPT to continue the process.

I repeated this process several times.

Finally, the entire code was output. ChatGPT even provided some helpful information at the end of the process.

I uploaded the plugin file with the new code to my test site, then jumped into the site’s admin area and activated the plugin.

It worked! Or so it seemed.

ChatGPT even gave the plugin its own menu item…

And a settings screen with lots of fancy boxes and fields.

My first impression was “Wow…ChatGPT created the plugin and made its own decisions about some of the plugin settings and the user interface layout and design!”

But… “does the plugin work?”

I couldn’t see a field where I could specify how many posts or pages to create, so I simply ticked some boxes, entered some values, and clicked on the “Save Changes” button to see what happens.

And…absolutely nothing happened!

My fancy-ass plugin was all make-believe, just like one of those children’s playground spaceships that’s filled with useless knobs you can turn and buttons you can press while pretending to be flying in outer space.

So, I reached out to one of our developers via Slack and asked them to look at the plugin file.

Some of the comments that came back included the following:

• “The plugin tries to generate random content on each and every admin page load”
• “It calls a function dummy_content_generator_generate_content_paragraphs which, in turn, attempts to call dummy_content_generator_get_random_paragraph for every paragraph it tries to generate. The problem is that there is no dummy_content_generator_get_random_paragraph function.
• “The page loads to a point, then it errors out because there’s more missing stuff”
• “Other than all the mentioned issues, there’s no validation whatsoever, and no escaping of the output, which is terrible”
• “In terms of having something as starting point, this is a very, very poor one. In terms of having a working plugin, this is nowhere near that”

After some back and forth discussions , it was deemed that there was quite a lot wrong with the plugin, that it would take a lot of work to fix it, and they suggested I scrap the project.

At this point, however, I was too invested in my mission to simply abandon everything and give up. Recalling Sir Winston Churchill’s famous words (“Fetch me another brandy” “Never give in, never give in, never, never, never…”), I decided it was time for…

Take #2…

Ok, so my first attempt to get ChatGPT to build a WordPress plugin from scratch was a dismal failure. This in itself provided some valuable insights into ChatGPT’s ability to perform complex coding tasks (or, as someone in the team put it, “you can’t code using ChatGPT without having extensive coding knowledge.”)

So, for “Take #2,” let’s reset and go again with a simpler plugin request.

Going back to the drawing board, a genius lightbulb moment lit up my mind…why not ask ChatGPT to suggest ideas for simple WordPress plugins it could then generate the code for?

So, that’s what I did. Here’s the prompt I promptly engineered…

And here’s the list of suggested plugins ChatGPT replied with…

I liked the last suggestion, so I asked ChatGPT to generate the code for a functional content duplicator plugin, and it immediately went to work.

ChatGPT generated the following code for the plugin in the blink of an eye:

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Content Duplicator
Description: Allows users to duplicate posts, pages, or custom post types with one click.
Version: 1.0.0
Author: Your Name
Author URI: https://yourwebsite.com
*/

// Add duplicate action links to post row actions
function content_duplicator_add_duplicate_link( $actions, $post ) {
    if ( current_user_can( 'edit_posts' ) ) {
        $actions['duplicate'] = '<a href="' . wp_nonce_url( admin_url( 'admin-post.php?action=content_duplicator_duplicate_post&post_id=' . $post->ID ), 'content_duplicator_duplicate_post' ) . '" title="Duplicate this item" rel="permalink">Duplicate</a>';
    }
    return $actions;
}
add_filter( 'post_row_actions', 'content_duplicator_add_duplicate_link', 10, 2 );

// Duplicate the post
function content_duplicator_duplicate_post() {
    if ( isset( $_GET['post_id'] ) ) {
        $post_id = absint( $_GET['post_id'] );

        if ( current_user_can( 'edit_posts' ) && wp_verify_nonce( $_GET['_wpnonce'], 'content_duplicator_duplicate_post' ) ) {
            $post = get_post( $post_id );

            $args = array(
                'post_title' => $post->post_title . ' (Duplicate)',
                'post_content' => $post->post_content,
                'post_type' => $post->post_type,
                'post_status' => $post->post_status,
                'post_parent' => $post->post_parent,
                'post_author' => get_current_user_id(),
            );

            $new_post_id = wp_insert_post( $args );

            if ( $new_post_id ) {
                // Duplicate meta fields
                $meta_fields = get_post_custom( $post_id );
                foreach ( $meta_fields as $key => $values ) {
                    foreach ( $values as $value ) {
                        add_post_meta( $new_post_id, $key, $value );
                    }
                }

                // Redirect to the duplicated post
                wp_redirect( admin_url( 'post.php?action=edit&post=' . $new_post_id ) );
                exit;
            }
        }
    }
}
add_action( 'admin_post_content_duplicator_duplicate_post', 'content_duplicator_duplicate_post' );

It even provided a set of instructions after generating the code.

I then went back to my test site and uploaded the new plugin file to the wp-content > plugins directory.

I also created a dummy post to test the plugin with…

Here are the post’s menu options before activating the plugin…

Let’s go and activate the plugin…

Success! The plugin activated.

Now, let’s see if the plugin actually works.

Here’s my test post again. Note that the plugin has added a new “Duplicate” item to the menu after being activated.

Let’s click on “Duplicate” and see what happens…

A duplicate post has been created…

Here’s the table of posts showing entries for the original and duplicated post.

I’m sure that with better prompt engineering and some code tweaking, the plugin could have been significantly improved. For example, I would prefer if the plugin set the post status of the newly-duplicated post to ‘draft’ instead of publishing it, but ChatGPT delivered a simple WordPress plugin that worked. It was basic, but it did the job.

All I needed to do now was to ask someone who codes WordPress plugins for a living to scrutinize the code and share how they felt about using a tool like ChatGPT to code plugins.

Feedback from Our Expert Plugin Developers

Shortly after uploading the plugin to one of our testing channels, I got pinged from one of our developers. Here are some of the key points provided in their feedback:

• “ChatGPT et al are decent at answering questions you already know the answer to.”
• “I also used it in the past to build a simple plugin for me, but as long as I was giving more complex prompts, it started to mess things around, so eventually I manually debug the given code to work, cause else it’d take ages for it to actually debug it line by line.”
• “Basically, it does what it says. However, it does what it says very literally. As in, it will duplicate a post and its corresponding postmeta (custom) fields. However, it doesn’t seem like it will propagate any taxonomies to the duplicated post (the plugin should copy and assign the same taxonomy terms, such as categories or tags, from the original post to the duplicated post).”
• If I was to be super-nitpicky about this, I’d also mention that it’s not L10n-ready – there won’t be an option to translate this plugin. But, that’s just being very nitpicky – I don’t really think, nor would I expect, a prompt-generated plugin to be generic enough to be needing something like that at all. To me, it is more of a “very specific problem domain” kind of a thing, including the language used. At the end of the day, it does do what it says it will, which is very nice.”

In addition to examining the WordPress plugin code generated by ChatGPT and providing feedback as shown above, our developers also agreed with the following key points after assessing ChatGPT’s current capabilities to generate code:

1 – It’s important to exercise caution and not blindly accept ChatGPT-generated code as correct.

• ChatGPT can provide answers, but it’s up to the user to assess whether the answer is correct or not.
• There is a risk of receiving incorrect or nonsensical answers from ChatGPT, both obvious and subtle.
• It’s important to exercise caution and not blindly accept the generated code as correct.
• ChatGPT’s output should be treated as autocomplete, making life easier but requiring caution and verification.

The ability to discern good code from bad or nonsensical code, however, implies that…

2 – Users should have sufficient knowledge and understanding of WordPress plugin development to evaluate and modify the generated code as needed.

• ChatGPT can help simplify and expedite the process of building simple custom WordPress plugins, generate code snippets, and provide explanations. Anything more complex, however, requires plugin development experience and coding skills.
• Using ChatGPT without sufficient knowledge can lead to negative consequences or unreliable code.
• Relying solely on ChatGPT without critical thinking is similar to blindly copying the first answer from Stack Overflow (Stack Overflow threads provide more context, multiple answers, and feedback from other users, making it a more reliable resource, but Stack Overflow threads tend to be more generic, whereas ChatGPT can provide specific answers to individual queries).

3 – Utilizing other resources, such as WordPress documentation, tutorials, and community forums, alongside ChatGPT can provide a more comprehensive understanding of WordPress plugin development.

• As you explore the possibilities of using ChatGPT for WordPress plugin development, it’s valuable to engage with the WordPress community. Share your experiences, ask for feedback, and seek guidance from experienced developers. Participating in forums, attending WordPress meetups, or joining online communities can provide valuable insights and help you refine your plugin development process.
• Additionally, consider following WordPress security best practices to safeguard your website from potential vulnerabilities. ChatGPT can provide recommendations on security measures you can implement to protect your plugin.
• It’s also essential to maintain a clear understanding of your desired functionality and thoroughly review and test the generated code and secure your custom plugins before deploying them to a production environment.

Can ChatGPT Turn You Into a WordPress Plugin Developer?

We’ve explored how you can utilize ChatGPT to build simple custom WordPress plugins quickly and securely, even if you have limited coding experience.

Beyond the core functionality of your plugin, you can also leverage ChatGPT to generate code for custom user interfaces. With its ability to understand prompts and generate HTML, CSS, and JavaScript snippets, you can create intuitive admin interfaces, front-end components, and interactive elements that will enhance the user experience and allow you to deliver a polished final product.

By utilizing the language model’s capabilities, you can generate code snippets, optimize functionality, and create user-friendly interfaces. However, it’s crucial to understand the generated code, review and refine it, and thoroughly test your custom plugins before deploying them to your live website.

The generated code may also require adjustments to align with coding standards, naming conventions, or specific project requirements. This requires a certain amount of coding knowledge and skills, as does optimizing the code and ensuring it follows WordPress coding guidelines for better maintainability.

The bottom line: AI-powered tools like ChatGP can streamline your workflow, boost productivity, and unlock new possibilities. While ChatGPT is a powerful and valuable tool to have in your arsenal, AI won’t replace skilled coders any time soon.

Interested in Developing WordPress plugins?

Check out some of our tutorials and articles on WordPress plugin development:

• Getting Started with WordPress Plugin Development
• A Quick and In-Depth Guide to WordPress Hooks
• Creating WordPress Plugins in An Object Oriented Way

Can AI turn non-coders into pro WordPress plugin developers? To find out, we asked ChatGPT to build a custom WordPress plugin from scratch and then had our crack team of developers examine the code…

AI is the world’s most popular two-letter word right now. With all the recent news headlines about whether AI will take our jobs away, we wanted to know… can ChatGPT actually develop a functional and useful WordPress plugin without having to write code from scratch? And does the plugin meet best coding practices?

Fortunately, WPMU DEV builds some of the most robust WordPress plugins in the world, so we have plenty of expert WordPress plugin developers who can put ChatGPT to the test.

In fact, if you take a stroll around our company’s virtual corridors, you can’t help but bump into WordPress coders and developers. It seems everyone around here can look at a WordPress plugin and see PHP the way Neo sees the Matrix’s digital rain code.

Everyone, that is …except me!

I’m just a blog writer with no coding skills and a burning desire to add “prompt engineer” to my CV.

So, in this post, we’ll explore how to leverage the power of ChatGPT to build a simple custom WordPress plugin quickly and securely, even if you lack extensive coding skills.

We’ll do this by:

1) Asking ChatGPT to generate the code for a useful plugin that we can test, and

2) Running the code generated by ChatGPT past our team of professional plugin developers so they can review it and provide their honest feedback.

We’ll cover the following:

• Step 1 – Define the Plugin’s Functionality
• Step 2 – Generate Code Snippets with ChatGPT
• Step 3 – Test the Custom Plugin
• Feedback from Our Expert Plugin Developers
• Can ChatGPT Turn You Into a WordPress Plugin Developer?

Step 1 – Define the Plugin’s Functionality

Before using ChatGPT to generate code, we need to have a clear understanding of the functionality we want our plugin to provide.

This starts by outlining the specific features, actions, or modifications we’ll want to achieve with our plugin. This will then help us generate accurate prompts for ChatGPT and ensure that our AI-generated code aligns with our desired outcomes.

Step 2 – Generate Code Snippets with ChatGPT

To generate our code snippets using ChatGPT, we’ll keep things simple (and free) and use the freely available interface provided by OpenAI.

Take #1…

Note: My first attempt at using ChatGPT to create a WordPress plugin from scratch was way too ambitious. I asked ChatGPT to build me a simple WordPress time-travel dummy text generating plugin, using the prompt below…

As someone who spends a lot of time writing WordPress tutorials, I often need dummy content to test plugins, create screenshots, etc.

So, I thought it would be great to model my AI-generated dummy content plugin on a plugin I often use called FakerPress.

ChatGPT pushed back on my request and let me know that creating a fully functional WordPress plugin with all the features I requested was beyond the scope of a single response.

However, it did offer to provide me with a basic template, guide me on how to implement some of the features I mentioned, and even gave me instructions on how to create a plugin directory and file…

At first, ChatGPT output code that looked quite impressive…

ChatGPT also output all the additional code required to complete the next steps.

With the plugin code output, the next step was to upload the plugin to my test site and test it to make sure it works.

Step 3 – Test The Custom Plugin

After uploading the folder containing the plugin code to the wp-content > plugins directory of my test site and activating it inside the Plugins screen…

I got a fatal error!

Assuming that maybe I didn’t add the additional snippets that ChatGPT provided correctly, I went back and asked for all the code to be provided as a single file that I could simply copy and paste to overwrite and update the uploaded plugin file…

There was a lot of code to output, so whenever the process came to a standstill, I instructed ChatGPT to continue…

After repeating this process several times, ChatGPT output the entire code and even provided some helpful information.

I uploaded the plugin file with the new code to my test site, then jumped into the site’s admin area and activated the plugin.

It worked! Or, so it seemed.

ChatGPT gave the plugin its own menu item…

And a settings screen with lots of fancy boxes and fields…

But I couldn’t see a field to specify how many posts or pages to create, so I simply ticked some boxes, entered some values, and clicked on the “Save Changes” button to see what happens.

And…absolutely nothing happened!

My fancy-ass plugin was all make-believe, just like one of those children’s playground spaceships that’s filled with useless knobs you can turn and buttons you can press while pretending to be flying in outer space.

So, I reached out to one of our developers via Slack and asked them to look at the plugin file.

Some of the comments that came back included the following:

• “The plugin tries to generate random content on each and every admin page load”
• “It calls a function dummy_content_generator_generate_content_paragraphs which, in turn, attempts to call dummy_content_generator_get_random_paragraph for every paragraph it tries to generate. The problem is that there is no dummy_content_generator_get_random_paragraph function.
• “The page loads to a point, then it errors out because there’s more missing stuff”
• “Other than all the mentioned issues, there’s no validation whatsoever, and no escaping of the output, which is terrible”
• “In terms of having something as starting point, this is a very, very poor one. In terms of having a working plugin, this is nowhere near that”

After some back and forth discussions , it was deemed that there was quite a lot wrong with the plugin, that it would take a lot of work to fix it, and they suggested I scrap the project.

At this point, however, I was too invested in my mission to simply abandon everything and give up. Recalling Sir Winston Churchill’s famous words (“Fetch me another brandy” “Never give in, never give in, never, never, never…”), I decided it was time for…

Take #2…

Ok, so my first attempt to get ChatGPT to build a WordPress plugin from scratch was a dismal failure. This in itself provided some valuable insights into ChatGPT’s ability to perform complex coding tasks (or, as someone in the team put it, “you can’t code using ChatGPT without having extensive coding knowledge.”)

So, for “Take #2,” I decided to try again with a simpler plugin request.

Going back to the drawing board, a genius lightbulb moment lit up in my mind…why not ask ChatGPT to suggest ideas for simple WordPress plugins it could then generate the code for?

So, that’s what I did. Here’s the prompt I promptly engineered…

And here’s the list of suggested plugins ChatGPT replied with…

I liked the last suggestion, so I asked ChatGPT to generate the code for a functional content duplicator plugin, and it immediately went to work.

ChatGPT generated the following code for the plugin in the blink of an eye:

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Content Duplicator
Description: Allows users to duplicate posts, pages, or custom post types with one click.
Version: 1.0.0
Author: Your Name
Author URI: https://yourwebsite.com
*/

// Add duplicate action links to post row actions
function content_duplicator_add_duplicate_link( $actions, $post ) {
    if ( current_user_can( 'edit_posts' ) ) {
        $actions['duplicate'] = '<a href="' . wp_nonce_url( admin_url( 'admin-post.php?action=content_duplicator_duplicate_post&post_id=' . $post->ID ), 'content_duplicator_duplicate_post' ) . '" title="Duplicate this item" rel="permalink">Duplicate</a>';
    }
    return $actions;
}
add_filter( 'post_row_actions', 'content_duplicator_add_duplicate_link', 10, 2 );

// Duplicate the post
function content_duplicator_duplicate_post() {
    if ( isset( $_GET['post_id'] ) ) {
        $post_id = absint( $_GET['post_id'] );

        if ( current_user_can( 'edit_posts' ) && wp_verify_nonce( $_GET['_wpnonce'], 'content_duplicator_duplicate_post' ) ) {
            $post = get_post( $post_id );

            $args = array(
                'post_title' => $post->post_title . ' (Duplicate)',
                'post_content' => $post->post_content,
                'post_type' => $post->post_type,
                'post_status' => $post->post_status,
                'post_parent' => $post->post_parent,
                'post_author' => get_current_user_id(),
            );

            $new_post_id = wp_insert_post( $args );

            if ( $new_post_id ) {
                // Duplicate meta fields
                $meta_fields = get_post_custom( $post_id );
                foreach ( $meta_fields as $key => $values ) {
                    foreach ( $values as $value ) {
                        add_post_meta( $new_post_id, $key, $value );
                    }
                }

                // Redirect to the duplicated post
                wp_redirect( admin_url( 'post.php?action=edit&post=' . $new_post_id ) );
                exit;
            }
        }
    }
}
add_action( 'admin_post_content_duplicator_duplicate_post', 'content_duplicator_duplicate_post' );

It even provided a set of instructions after generating the code.

I then uploaded the new plugin file to the wp-content > plugins directory of my test site using The Hub’s file manager.

And created a dummy post to test the plugin with…

Here are the post’s menu options before activating the plugin…

After activating the plugin…

Success!

The plugin activated. But did it actually work?

Here’s my test post again (note that the plugin added a new “Duplicate” item to the menu after activation). I then clicked on “Duplicate” to see what happens…

And a duplicate post was created!

Here’s the table of posts showing entries for the original and duplicated post.

I’m sure that with better prompt engineering and some code tweaking, the plugin could have been significantly improved. For example, I would prefer if the plugin set the post status of the newly-duplicated post to ‘draft’ instead of publishing it, but ChatGPT delivered a simple WordPress plugin that worked. It was basic, but it did the job.

The last step was to ask someone who codes WordPress plugins for a living to scrutinize the code and get their opinion about using a tool like ChatGPT to code plugins.

Feedback from Our Expert Plugin Developers

Shortly after uploading the plugin to one of our testing channels, I got a ping from one of our developers. Here are some of the key points provided in their feedback:

• “ChatGPT et al are decent at answering questions you already know the answer to.”
• “I also used it in the past to build a simple plugin for me, but as long as I was giving more complex prompts, it started to mess things around, so eventually I manually debug the given code to work, cause else it’d take ages for it to actually debug it line by line.”
• “Basically, it does what it says. However, it does what it says very literally. As in, it will duplicate a post and its corresponding postmeta (custom) fields. However, it doesn’t seem like it will propagate any taxonomies to the duplicated post (the plugin should copy and assign the same taxonomy terms, such as categories or tags, from the original post to the duplicated post).”
• If I was to be super-nitpicky about this, I’d also mention that it’s not L10n-ready – there won’t be an option to translate this plugin. But, that’s just being very nitpicky – I don’t really think, nor would I expect, a prompt-generated plugin to be generic enough to be needing something like that at all. To me, it is more of a “very specific problem domain” kind of a thing, including the language used. At the end of the day, it does do what it says it will, which is very nice.”

In addition to examining the WordPress plugin code generated by ChatGPT and providing feedback as shown above, our developers also agreed with the following key points after assessing ChatGPT’s current capabilities to generate code:

1 – It’s important to exercise caution and not blindly accept ChatGPT-generated code as correct.

• ChatGPT can provide answers, but it’s up to the user to assess whether the answer is correct or not.
• There is a risk of receiving incorrect or nonsensical answers from ChatGPT, both obvious and subtle.
• It’s important to exercise caution and not blindly accept the generated code as correct.
• ChatGPT’s output should be treated as autocomplete, making life easier but requiring caution and verification.

The ability to discern good code from bad or nonsensical code, however, implies that…

2 – Users should have sufficient knowledge and understanding of WordPress plugin development to evaluate and modify the generated code as needed.

• ChatGPT can help simplify and expedite the process of building simple custom WordPress plugins, generate code snippets, and provide explanations. Anything more complex, however, requires plugin development experience and coding skills.
• Using ChatGPT without sufficient knowledge can lead to negative consequences or unreliable code.
• Relying solely on ChatGPT without critical thinking is similar to blindly copying the first answer from Stack Overflow (Stack Overflow threads provide more context, multiple answers, and feedback from other users, making it a more reliable resource, but Stack Overflow threads tend to be more generic, whereas ChatGPT can provide specific answers to individual queries).

3 – Utilizing other resources, such as WordPress documentation, tutorials, and community forums, alongside ChatGPT can provide a more comprehensive understanding of WordPress plugin development.

• As you explore the possibilities of using ChatGPT for WordPress plugin development, it’s valuable to engage with the WordPress community. Share your experiences, ask for feedback, and seek guidance from experienced developers. Participating in forums, attending WordPress meetups, or joining online communities can provide valuable insights and help you refine your plugin development process.
• Additionally, consider following WordPress security best practices to safeguard your website from potential vulnerabilities. ChatGPT can provide recommendations on security measures you can implement to protect your plugin.
• It’s also essential to maintain a clear understanding of your desired functionality and thoroughly review and test the generated code and secure your custom plugins before deploying them to a production environment.

Can ChatGPT Turn You Into a WordPress Plugin Developer?

In this article, we’ve explored how you can utilize ChatGPT to build simple custom WordPress plugins, even if you have limited coding experience.

In other articles, we’ve seen that AI-powered tools like ChatGP can streamline your workflow, boost productivity, and unlock new possibilities (check out our recent article on ways that ChatGPT can help you as a WordPress developer).

While there are over 60,000 free WordPress plugins available covering every type of functionality you can imagine, sometimes you may need a custom solution to meet a client’s specific requirements.

Beyond the core functionality of your plugin, you can also leverage ChatGPT to generate code for custom user interfaces. With its ability to understand prompts and generate HTML, CSS, and JavaScript snippets, you can create intuitive admin interfaces, front-end components, and interactive elements that will enhance the user experience and allow you to deliver a polished final product.

By utilizing the language model’s capabilities, you can generate code snippets, optimize functionality, and create user-friendly interfaces. However, it’s crucial to understand the generated code, review and refine it, and thoroughly test your custom plugins before deploying them to your live website.

The generated code may also require adjustments to align with coding standards, naming conventions, or specific project requirements. This requires a certain amount of coding knowledge and skills, as does optimizing the code and ensuring it follows WordPress coding guidelines for better maintainability.

The bottom line:

Here are my findings after trying to get ChatGPT to code me a plugin from scratch:

1. I couldn’t have gotten this done without the help of our experienced developers.
2. Using ChatGPT to generate code without coding knowledge is really challenging – it helps to know what you are doing 🙂
3. While ChatGPT is a powerful and valuable tool, it doesn’t seem like AI will replace skilled coders any time soon.

Interested in Developing WordPress plugins?

Check out some of our tutorials and articles on WordPress plugin development:

• Getting Started with WordPress Plugin Development
• A Quick and In-Depth Guide to WordPress Hooks
• Creating WordPress Plugins in An Object Oriented Way

With the evolution of AI technologies like ChatGPT, many questions linger about the future of WordPress development and how AI can actually help – not hurt – your job or business.

Sophisticated artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT can perform many tasks that previously required human intelligence.

If you’re concerned about AI eventually replacing you and taking your job (we’ve written before about how AI will affect the WordPress industry), fear not.

This article explores some of the many ways that AI, specifically ChatGPT, can actually help you as a WordPress developer.

After reading this article and trying out some of the applications described below, hopefully you’ll see why an AI tool like ChatGPT can be a valuable assistant to help you get things done faster and more efficiently.

We’ll cover the following:

• The Rundown on ChatGPT
• 11 Ways ChatGPT Can Help You As a Developer

1. 1. Generating Code
   2. Testing
   3. Technical Documentation
   4. Debugging
   5. Comment Generation
   6. Simplifying Complex Code
   7. Data Processing
   8. Engineering
   9. Generating Alternative Code
   10. Model Development and Deployment
   11. Research

• Can You Trust ChatGPT’s Responses?

Let’s kick things off with…

The Rundown on ChatGPT

ChatGPT, short for Chat Generative Pretrained Transformer, is an AI tool created by OpenAI, an AI research and implementation company.

This powerful tool has been fine-tuned using reinforcement learning and a supervised learning approach, and serves as a long-form question-answering AI that can effectively respond to complex queries.

ChatGPT is a type of Generative AI, which means that when it is trained, it can generate outputs similar to the examples it was trained on, although not identical. It can assist you in various tasks, such as coding, crafting essays, generating outlines, and even composing emails.

11 Ways ChatGPT Can Help You As a Developer

As a WordPress developer, ChatGPT offers many advantages that you can leverage to enhance your work. Let’s go through some of the ways it can benefit you.

Note: the examples below were generated using GPT-3 (its free version) — so there’s no cost to experiment with the methods described below.

1. Generating Code

ChatGPT is an invaluable tool for WordPress developers when it comes to generating code. By simply providing a few lines specifying the type of code required, ChatGPT can understand and interpret your needs, saving you significant time and effort.

But it doesn’t stop at basic code generation. ChatGPT possesses the ability to generate intricate code for complex tasks, such as creating entire modules or classes. This means that even if you’re unfamiliar with a particular code, ChatGPT can serve as a crash course, allowing you to grasp its inner workings and learn the essentials.

To demonstrate ChatGPT’s capabilities, I requested a line of code for an opt-in form where customers can choose from a variety of food items. Remarkably, ChatGPT swiftly generated the necessary code in a matter of moments.

If you’re not happy with the response, you can regenerate it. It will then give you another option. Additionally, it tells you what exactly is on this form, and you can vote on whether this response is better, worse, or the same.

Freeing up time for your WordPress business by eliminating time-consuming coding can be extremely beneficial to focus on other areas of your business.

2. Testing

ChatGPT is also an invaluable tool for WordPress developers when it comes to creating test cases. It offers several ways to assist in this process.

Firstly, ChatGPT has the ability to analyze and understand the logic and structure of the code you enter in its chat area. This enables it to generate test cases that cover different code paths and edge cases, providing comprehensive test coverage.

Furthermore, ChatGPT generates clear and easy-to-understand documentation for these test cases. This documentation includes the test inputs, predicted outcomes, and conditions involved. Having such organized information at your disposal greatly simplifies the testing process.

With this valuable information at hand, as a developer, you can easily update your code and determine the most effective variables to use based on the test case outcomes. This allows for efficient code refinement and optimization.

3. Technical Documentation

Technical documentation can be a daunting task for developers. Luckily, ChatGPT can help, thanks to ChatGPT’s natural language skills.

Simply give ChatGPT a snippet of code, and instruct it to generate documentation explaining the code’s purpose, inputs, and other important information.

For example, here’s a snippet from the code it generated featuring food items. There was a lot to it, so this is just a short excerpt from the provided documentation.

You can get even more detailed information, like parameters, returns, error handling, and much more.

Be sure to check for accuracy. ChatGPT isn’t perfect (which we’ll discuss later in this article); however, using it for documentation – if anything – can provide a great outline to edit accordingly.

It’s a terrific way to quickly punch up documentation for code and focus on other relevant things in your WordPress business.

4. Debugging

If you need to track down bugs or apply good code practices, ChatGPT is extremely beneficial. It can recommend debugging strategies and find bugs.

Plus, it can examine a piece of code and make suggestions that you can do to find and fix any bug issues. This eliminates hours of painstaking looking for bugs on your own.

Also, you can recommend code restructuring, which helps by suggesting modifications to improve readability, maintainability, and a bug-free nature, so there are fewer bugs and faster development.

Debugging quickly with ChatGPT can save a lot of time (and a headache) when coding for your clients.

5. Comment Generation

ChatGPT provides a valuable feature for WordPress developers: code commenting. It helps you gain a clear understanding of what your code does by adding comments and explanations to specific code segments.

In fact, ChatGPT often offers comments on its own, but you can also request detailed comments as needed.

This commenting feature greatly aids other developers in comprehending your code more easily. It serves as a form of documentation that provides clarity and context, making it simpler and easier for both you and other developers to understand your code’s functionality.

Moreover, ChatGPT is capable of providing clarifications and explanations for specific parts of the code. This feature is particularly useful when you don’t require full documentation but still need specific insights and details about certain code segments.

6. Simplifying Complex Code

ChatGPT allows programmers to produce simple language explanations of complicated code areas so that others can maintain the code more easily.

This works because ChatGPT can automatically generate code comments and documentation, and the AI can simplify code. This helps save a lot of time as a developer.

Additionally, with the capability of simplifying code, it’s often times even more accurate than what a developer might write.

Explaining complex code in snippets is extremely useful for developers to understand difficult code and have it explained simply. ChatGPT can even break down what each line of code does, how it works, and so forth.

7. Data Processing

Need assistance in data processing? ChatGPT can help by generating code that cleans, transforms, and prepares the data for training and testing models. This includes managing tasks such as encoding categorical variables, dealing with missing values, or imputing missing values with a straightforward strategy.

Plus, it can create new features from existing data. It generates code that extracts information from unstructured data (e.g. text or images). From this point, it turns that info into structured data used for machine learning.

This helps make the preprocessing process more streamlined, time efficient, and accurate.

8. Engineering

ChatGPT assists in feature engineering for machine learning programming. It does this by offering automated text generation capabilities.

When you have a machine learning platform with different data and relevance, it can improve performance.

So, feature engineering assists with reducing the dimensionality of a dataset and enhancing the interpretability of a model – quickly and accurately.

9. Generating Alternative Code

This feature is for WordPress developers who want to produce alternative code that improves performance. So, you can take an old piece of code and ask ChatGPT to suggest improvements.

It may suggest limiting memory usage or perhaps reducing the number of operations.

For example, here’s a snippet of code for which I asked ChatGPT to make an alternative.

It then answers back.

There is also an explanation for it.

Generating alternative code has never been easier, thanks to ChatGPT.

10. Model Development and Deployment

ChatGPT can assist in the preparation and cleaning of text data. This enhances the performance of a model and can create human-like text, which can then be used to mimic human-computer communication.

This is unique and helpful when you want to develop and deploy conversational AI systems, such as a chatbot.

Additionally, ChatGPT can create natural language explanations of a model’s predictions. This helps make the model more explainable.

For natural language, ChatGPT has the power to generate natural language text that can relate and work well with any interaction it has with people.

11. Research

For Q&A’s and finding answers, ChatGPT is a great tool for researching as a developer. It can comprehend complex programming questions and deliver answers.

Basically, you can use ChatGPT as a search engine. Ask it complex questions, and get answers. It’s a way to get an answer quickly and easily instead of combing numerous sources.

It also provides relevant code examples and snippets with its answers, so you can see for yourself if the answers it gives suffices.

For example, here I asked it to generate a library that adds a pop-up feature to my website.

AI is not always 100% accurate. However, you can, more often than not, get good, accurate information regarding coding and development answers. Please check elsewhere if you feel it’s not providing accurate information. This being said, you should gain some useful and accurate information more often than not.

This brings us to…

Can You Trust ChatGPT’s Responses?

ChatGPT has some limitations that you should be aware of as a WordPress developer. While it can be a helpful tool, it’s important to understand its potential shortcomings.

ChatGPT is not always accurate and may struggle with basic logic. It has been known to generate incorrect information or “hallucinate” facts that are completely inaccurate.

The model’s training data consists of a wide range of written content created by people over time. This means that ChatGPT may exhibit biased behavior and reflect the biases present in the data it was trained on.

In summary, it’s essential to exercise caution and not blindly accept everything ChatGPT generates as true. The model still has room for improvement before achieving complete accuracy. However, it can offer valuable insights that can complement your skills as a developer.

Moreover, if you come across any mistakes made by ChatGPT, it has the capability to learn from them, apologize, and make improvements to better cater to your specific needs.

As a developer, your role remains crucial. ChatGPT can serve as a helpful tool to assist you in your work, but it should not be relied upon to take over entirely.

Know Why to Use AI

As AI technology like ChatGPT continues to advance, it’s crucial to stay ahead of the curve and embrace transformative changes. Understanding the benefits of using AI will help you make informed decisions about incorporating it into your workflow.

Even though it’s far from perfect, ChatGPT can be a valuable tool for WordPress developers. By leveraging its capabilities as shown above, you can save time and concentrate on improving other aspects of your WordPress development business.

So, instead of worrying about AI replacing your job, consider it as a beneficial technology that, used wisely and with good judgement, can enhance your productivity, cut down costs, and ensure high-quality WordPress development.

But … don’t take it from us! We’ll let ChatGPT have the final word…