SECTION I WRITING · ARTICLES · OPINIONS EST. 2017

The Archive.

On WordPress, SEO, open source, AI, and the future of the web.

86 Articles · 2017–2026 · ~7h Reading

86 Articles

No. 078 · Featured Article · April 24, 2026 · 29 min read

The agency case for open source

Open source spent thirty years winning an argument about cost. AI is about to make that argument irrelevant. Whether open source can win the argument that replaces it (about agency) is an open question. The point of this post is to be honest about why.

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2026

27 Articles

86 05·24 Open Source Open Source First is right, but not enough. 6 min 85 05·22 Development Agent-ready by design 10 min 84 05·21 AI What's a visitor in the age of AI? 6 min 83 05·11 SEO FAQ schema died twice. The fix is FAQSection. 6 min 82 05·09 Personal stuff Vol. XV: out with the AI slop 4 min 81 05·08 WordPress If WordPress gets CPTs in Core, we also need custom fields 6 min 80 05·06 SEO The missing guide to SEO domain migrations 23 min 79 05·04 Development What agent-ready looks like for a static blog 12 min 78 04·24 Open Source The agency case for open source 29 min 77 04·22 Development Dropping Astro's ClientRouter for web standards 6 min 76 04·14 Development How I made my skills update themselves 3 min 75 04·13 SEO Standards don't prove themselves 7 min 74 04·12 SEO Astro SEO: the definitive guide. 15 min 73 04·10 Development SEO-graph - for the machine-readable web 6 min 72 04·07 Open Source Defending the open web is not enough 9 min 71 04·03 WordPress WordPress needs to refactor, not redecorate 9 min 70 04·01 AI EmDash: a CMS built for 2026 6 min 69 03·26 Development Ask Joost: AI-powered answers from my blog 6 min 68 03·21 AI Do you need a CMS? 4 min 67 03·11 SEO AI optimization is replaying early SEO, just faster 4 min 66 02·26 WordPress FAIR, WordPress, and Knowing When to Stop 6 min 65 02·25 Development Share Obsidian links that actually work everywhere 2 min 64 02·21 AI Why healthy doubt beats AI confidence theater 6 min 63 02·14 Development Building an Autonomous Feedback Agent 8 min 62 02·12 Development Great minds think alike? My WordPress take on Markdown for Agents 3 min 61 01·12 Open Source The silence is deafening: Google’s “agentic” future leaves the WordPress economy behind 3 min 60 01·11 Development The Tailwind paradox: the high price of “enough” 4 min

2025

10 Articles

59 12·24 Development From installation to integration: Making plugins “agent-ready” 3 min 58 12·23 Development Vibe coding is a trap: why WordPress needs a design system now 3 min 57 12·22 Development The generalization tax: why WordPress is still the smart architectural base 3 min 56 12·21 Development The death of Code Copyright (and the rise of the Architect) 4 min 55 06·06 WordPress A new path forward for WordPress, and for the open web 4 min 54 06·05 WordPress Innovation in WordPress: a look at plugin development 8 min 53 04·22 SEO The unintended consequences of making SEO “for everyone” 4 min 52 03·26 SEO Build websites like it’s 2005 (and win in 2025) 3 min 51 03·13 SEO Redirect-By HTTP headers 2 min 50 01·01 WordPress WordPress comments, cookies and caching 6 min

2024

18 Articles

49 12·20 WordPress Breaking the Status Quo 7 min 48 12·12 WordPress WordPress, and what should be on its roadmap 7 min 47 12·04 Research Can I safely use AVIF or WebP share images? 3 min 46 10·31 Open Source The People Behind the Platform: How WordPress’s Community Drives its Success 5 min 45 09·26 WordPress Transparency, Contribution, and the Future of WordPress 5 min 43 07·02 Research CMS market share June 2024 commentary 3 min 44 07·02 Research CMS Market share measured “right” 3 min 42 06·07 WordPress Introducing a new plugin: Progress Planner 3 min 41 05·27 Development A right-click / contextmenu logo popover 2 min 40 03·15 Open Source Docusign to Documenso 3 min 39 03·07 Open Source HelpScout to Freescout 4 min 38 03·06 WordPress Playground Blueprint Builder 1 min 37 02·29 Development Cleaning up WordPress option clutter 3 min 36 02·02 WordPress Designing plugins to be uninstalled 2 min 35 01·30 WordPress Research: WordPress publications misuse tags 8 min 34 01·26 WordPress Multi-currency awesomeness with EDD & Cloudflare 3 min 33 01·23 Development GitHub Actions to keep your WordPress plugin healthy 4 min 32 01·01 WordPress WordPress needs more dev-rel 2 min

2023

8 Articles

31 12·30 Development Clickable WhatsApp links 2 min 30 12·20 Development Good-looking GitHub profile pages 3 min 29 12·19 Development How to create a healthy GitHub repository 4 min 28 12·14 WordPress Plugin demos with the WordPress playground 2 min 27 06·26 Yoast Saying goodbye to Marieke at Yoast 4 min 26 04·11 WordPress How to deal with plugin security issues 6 min 25 02·16 WordPress Gravity Forms notification routing with a lookup table 5 min 24 01·25 WordPress WordPress’ admin UI needs to be better 3 min

2022

5 Articles

23 07·06 SEO Social & Schema images: naming considerations 3 min 22 06·02 SEO Optimize crawling: let’s turn things around! 4 min 21 05·24 SEO Optimize crawling, for the environment 6 min 20 05·11 Research WordPress’ market share is shrinking 4 min 19 03·18 Personal stuff Transitioning to a new role at Yoast 2 min

2021

3 Articles

18 12·13 Research Elementor: WordPress’ secret growth driver? 3 min 17 08·12 Yoast Yoast joins Newfold 2 min 16 07·22 Productivity hacks Organize your screenshots on MacOS 2 min

2020

3 Articles

15 10·28 WordPress Building a trusted web, step 1. 2 min 14 04·24 Productivity hacks How to get week numbers in your Mac menu bar 2 min 13 02·08 Productivity hacks Automatically convert WebP files to PNG 2 min

2019

7 Articles

12 09·12 SEO Google’s robots changes, the web & the law 3 min 11 06·17 Travel Traveling to Peru 2 min 10 06·05 WordPress (Why) I’m stepping down from my WordPress marketing role 4 min 9 02·22 WordPress Marketing WordPress – first steps 4 min 8 01·24 Yoast Stepping “down” at Yoast 2 min 7 01·21 Personal stuff Leading marketing & communication for WordPress 5 min 6 01·03 Short Karen Sparck Jones 1 min

2018

3 Articles

5 12·27 WordPress Democratizing publishing 1 min 4 12·12 WordPress After WCUS 2018: WordPress & Gutenberg FAQ 4 min 3 11·06 WordPress WordPress 5.0 needs a different timeline 3 min

2017

2 Articles

2 06·17 WordPress Gutenberg and Yoast SEO 1 min 1 01·14 SEO Blogging about not SEO 1 min