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The death of Code Copyright (and the rise of the Architect)
We are witnessing a strange paradox in software development. Thanks to AI code generation, more open source code is being created today than ever before. Yet, simultaneously, the value of a single line of code has never been lower. The commons (the vast library of open source projects that allowed AI models to learn how…
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A new path forward for WordPress, and for the open web
In December, I wrote about the state of leadership in the WordPress ecosystem. I shared how too much power rests with one person, and how the lack of transparent governance puts contributors and businesses alike in difficult positions. That post ended with a call: we need to lead. That wasn’t rhetorical. It was a pivot.…
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Innovation in WordPress: a look at plugin development
Introduction Recent observations have highlighted a significant surge in new plugin submissions to the WordPress repository, as noted in this post. We also know that Automattic recently “unpaused” their contributions, leading to some pretty critical articles like this one from Roger Montti. The increase in plugin submissions got Marieke and me wondering about the relationship…
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The unintended consequences of making SEO “for everyone”
At Yoast, we had one mission: make SEO easier. For a long time, SEO for everyone was Yoast’s tagline, and we meant it. We helped millions of people optimize their content. We made technical SEO more accessible. We gave small businesses, bloggers, and creators a real chance to be found online. And we were successful.…
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Build websites like it’s 2005 (and win in 2025)
Last week was a whirlwind, first diving deep into AI and WordPress while working with the WP CLI as MCP host team at Cloudfest, then heading off to SMX Munich for non-stop conversations about SEO, AI, and the future of search. Two very different settings, one clear takeaway: The web has come full circle. Despite…
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Redirect-By HTTP headers
One of the things one runs into when you’re doing large migrations (between domains, or within a domain) is that you run into redirects that go “wrong”. A system somewhere is doing a redirect, and you don’t know which system you need to change that redirect in. A “Redirect-By” header helps you find out which…
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WordPress comments, cookies and caching
This post explains how WordPress uses comment cookies and why that is detrimental to your site’s caching. It then shows you how to fix this. When I wrote my previous post about WordPress leadership, I had anticipated getting a lot of comments. It turned out there were even more than I expected. This led to…
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Breaking the Status Quo
A vision for a new WordPress era WordPress is at a crossroads, now even more clearly then when I wrote my previous post on WordPress’s roadmap. I had very much intended to leave this topic alone for a bit until after the holiday break, until, last night, Matt imposed a holiday break on us all.…
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WordPress, and what should be on its roadmap
I was reading Hendrik Luehrsen’s excellent post “WordPress isn’t WordPress anymore“, and I decided I had to write more about this. I recently spoke at WordCamp NL about “The missing features of WordPress”, and these two things “touch”, in an important way. I love WordPress. I love WordPress plugins. I don’t love some of the…
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Can I safely use AVIF or WebP share images?
AVIF and WebP are efficient image storage formats. They are smaller than their predecessors, PNG, JPG, and GIF. This leads to smaller images, which means faster page loads, which is what we all want. So, you should use them everywhere. Ideally, we’d also be able to use these image formats for our OpenGraph image tags…
