How to Fix the Missed Schedule Post Error in WordPress

Do you want to fix the missed schedule post error in WordPress?

WordPress comes with a built-in feature that allows you to easily schedule posts to be automatically published at a later time. However, sometimes you may notice that scheduled posts don’t get published at all.

In this article, we’ll show you how to easily fix the missed schedule post error in WordPress. This will allow you to ensure that your scheduled posts are published on time.

What Causes WordPress to Miss Scheduled Posts?

Your WordPress hosting environment or plugin conflicts may cause WordPress to miss scheduled posts.

Normally, when you schedule a WordPress post to be published later, WordPress uses a technology called ‘Cron’ or ‘WordPress Cron‘ to automatically publish your post on time.

However, if your WordPress hosting server or a plugin is affecting the cron jobs, then WordPress would miss the scheduled tasks such as publishing scheduled posts.

Your other cron jobs may still work occasionally like checking for updates or deleting auto-saved drafts. That’s because once the publishing time is missed WordPress will not publish the blog post on a different time.

For most users, it does not happen very often and for some users it can become a common WordPress issue.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily fix the missed schedule post error in WordPress.

Fixing The Missed Schedule Post Error in WordPress

First thing you need to do is install and activate the Missed Scheduled Post Publisher plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

The plugin works out of the box, and there are no settings for you to configure.

How does Missed Scheduled Post Publisher plugin work?

The plugin simply checks your website every 15 minutes to see if a scheduled WordPress post has missed schedule.

If it finds any missed schedule items, then it changes the status from scheduled to published.

It works for posts, pages, products, and any other custom post types that you may have on your WordPress website.

We built this plugin to ensure it doesn’t impact your WordPress site speed because we know speed is important for SEO. This is the plugin we’re using on our own sites.

Troubleshooting Missed Scheduled Posts Error in WordPress

If installing the plugin does not immediately fix scheduled posts error on your website, then the following are a few tips that you can try.

1. Check Your WordPress Timezone Settings

Setting your timezone is one of the first things to do after installing WordPress. However, sometimes users miss it and their WordPress timezone doesn’t match the timezone they want to use for publishing and managing their website.

Simply go to Settings » General page and scroll down to the ‘Timezone’ section. From here, you need to select your timezone or the timezone you want to use for your WordPress website.

Don’t forget to click on the Save Changes button to store your settings.

2. Clear WordPress cache

If your WordPress posts are still missing schedule, then it is likely due to a poorly configured caching plugin. Try clearing WordPress cache and make sure that your WordPress caching plugin is properly configured to automatically clear cache at regular intervals.

3. Increase WordPress memory limit

Your WordPress website may be struggling with low memory limit issue. You can fix that by allowing WordPress to use more server memory which let’s WordPress run better.

Simply add the following code to your wp-config.php file ust before the line that says ‘That’s all, stop editing! Happy publishing.’

define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '500M');

For details, see our guide on how to increase memory limit in WordPress.

We hope this article helped you learn how to easily fix the missed schedule post error in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to easily troubleshoot WordPress errors on your own.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Fix the Missed Schedule Post Error in WordPress appeared first on WPBeginner.

March 03, 2021 at 06:00PM

SiteGround vs Bluehost vs WP Engine (Honest Comparison)

Are you looking for an honest web hosting comparison of SiteGround vs Bluehost vs WP Engine?

These top WordPress hosting companies are recommended by WPBeginner and many other industry experts. However, for beginners it’s often not clear which one is better for them.

In this guide, we will compare SiteGround vs Bluehost vs WP Engine with their pros and cons, so that you can make the right decision.

Comparison of SiteGround vs Bluehost vs WP Engine

At WPBeginner, we recommend SiteGround, Bluehost, and WP Engine as the top WordPress hosting services on the market.

And we don’t say it lightly. Over the years we have worked closely with dozens of WordPress hosting companies and know the pros and cons of the overall hosting industry.

To be even more confident in our recommendation, we regularly run tests, with real websites and data, on all these top hosting providers.

Now, if all three of them are good, then it comes down to each user’s own hosting requirements and needs.

For instance, some users may want to go for a low pricing option to control their website costs. Whereas other users may need a hosting solution that offers better support options.

In this comparison, we will take a closer look into the Pros and Cons of SiteGround vs Bluehost vs WP Engine in details. However, if you don’t want to go through the full comparison, here is a quick summary:

	SiteGround	Bluehost	WP Engine
Pricing	$6.99	$2.75	$20
Free Domain	No	Yes	No
Free SSL	Yes	Yes	Yes
Avg. Load Time	491 ms	1.48ms	337 ms
Support	Live Chat / Email / Phone	Live Chat / Email / Phone	Live Chat / Email / Phone
Rating	A+	A-	A+
Verdict	Best Premium Hosting	Best Cheap Hosting	Best Managed Hosting
	Visit SiteGround	Visit Bluehost	Visit WP Engine

That being said, let’s compare each one of them and see how they stack up.

SiteGround Comparison

SiteGround is one of the highest-rated WordPress hosting companies and an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider. They offer excellent customer support, top-notch performance, and a very beginner-friendly hosting setup.

They have a highly optimized WordPress hosting platform with their custom in-house performance optimizations. This makes your website incredibly fast which is good for SEO and user experience.

Pros of SiteGround

Each WordPress hosting provider has its pros and cons that you would want to know before signing up. SiteGround gives you some great benefits out of the box.

Let’s take a look at some of the advantages of choosing SiteGround as your hosting service.

Faster Website – SiteGround offers a highly optimized WordPress hosting platform with its own performance optimizations. Their servers are hosted on the Google Cloud Platform which is one of the fastest cloud hosting infrastructure on the market. Faster sites help you improve your search engine rankings.

Excellent Customer Support – SiteGround offers heroic customer support with fast response times, knowledgable and skilled live chat, and 24/7 phone support.

Multiple Geographic Locations – SiteGround allows you to easily select your server’s geographic location. For instance, if your customers are primarily located in Asia, then you can select servers located in Asia (Singapore). Other datacenter locations include: USA, Australia, United Kingdom, Germany, and Netherlands.

Free CDN and SSL – SiteGround allows you to easily turn on Cloudflare free content delivery network (CDN) for your website. It also makes it super easy to add free SSL certificate on your site using Let’s Encrypt.

Daily Backup – They include daily backup on all their plans, and you can get on-demand backup copies on their higher plans.

WordPress Site Migration – SiteGround comes with a migrator plugin that makes it easy for you to move your WordPress website from another host to SiteGround.

Dev Tools – All plans come with WP-CLI and SSH support. With their GrowBig plan, you get access to staging environment, ability to add collaborators, and WordPress supercacher performance boosters. The GoGeek plan comes with dev tools like GIT, Ultrafast PHP, white-label clients, and more.

Cons of SiteGround

There are also some disadvantages of using SiteGround that some users may find a deal breaker.

Higher Monthly Costs – If you choose to pay month to month, then their hosting plans would become quite expensive. You can save on that by signing up for a yearly plan.

Storage Limits – There is a fixed storage available for each hosting plan. It is quite large and most website owners wouldn’t need extra storage, but it is still something you should keep in mind.

SiteGround Review

SiteGround has a 4.9 star rating on WPBeginner based on 4,506 user reviews. You can read more about their hosting score and performance tests in our detailed SiteGround Review.

We also use SiteGround to host the WPBeginner website. See why we switched to SiteGround.

The best part about SiteGround is that you can use their StartUp plan to get started at an affordable price and grow into their VPS and Dedicated Servers as your website grows. They have a 30 day money-back guarantee which is the industry standard.

Bluehost Comparison

Bluehost is one of the biggest web hosting companies in the world and an officially recommended WordPress host. They offer WordPress optimized hosting plans with faster servers and reliable performance.

Their shared hosting prices are lower priced when compared to SiteGround and WP Engine. This makes them a good choice for beginners & small businesses on a limited budget.

Pros of Bluehost

Bluehost offers great value at low cost but what are some of their pros and cons? Let’s start with some of the benefits of using Bluehost as your hosting service.

Lower Costs – Bluehost’s entry-level plan allows you to start for a lower price which is a great value for new small businesses, bloggers, portfolio, and other type of websites.

Ease of Use – It has one of the most beginner-friendly hosting control panel that makes it super easy to install WordPress (one-click) and manage your website.

Free Domain – They offer a free domain name which saves you additional money on your start up cost.

Free CDN + Free SSL – Bluehost offers free CDN to speed up your website, and all plans come with free SSL certificate to improve website security.

Website Speed – In our tests, we found Bluehost to perform well with no performance optimization done on our test sites. You can add WordPress caching plugins to unlock further speed improvements.

Staging Sites + Dev Tools – Bluehost plans come with staging site setup, automatic WordPress updates, ability to change PHP versions, SFTP access, and more.

Cons of Bluehost

Obviously, there are some downsides to using Bluehost as well. The following are some of the disadvantages that you may want to know.

Higher domain renewal price – Their free domain renewal price is higher than average. It does not make an immediate impact on most businesses but it is something you may need to keep in mind.

Upselling addons – You’ll see a lot of upselling during signup. Most beginners usually don’t need these products right away so you can skip them.

Bluehost Review

Bluehost has a 5-star rating on WPBeginner based on over 300 user reviews and because of the price to value they offer. We also ran our own performance and stress tests on their servers, you can read all about them in our detailed Bluehost review.

The best part about Bluehost is that you get a free domain with all plans, unlimited bandwidth & SSD storage on their Plus plan, and great overall value for what you pay.

Their Ecommerce hosting plan for WooCommerce comes with over $1000+ in premium WooCommerce & WordPress extensions which is a huge cost savings for online store owners.

WP Engine Comparison

WP Engine is one of the topmost recommended managed WordPress hosting providers in the world. They are among the pioneers of managed WordPress hosting services.

On a managed WordPress plan, the hosting provider offers a highly optimized environment with custom caching built-in. The hosting provider also takes care of updates and backups.

WP Engine provides a robust platform used by businesses and agencies alike. It is easy enough for beginners to manage their website and advanced for developers and agencies to host client sites.

Pros of WP Engine

WP Engine offers a powerful hosting solution, but there are pros and cons that you should look at beforehands. Following are some of the advantages of using WP Engine.

Reliability – WP Engine’s proprietary technology can easily handle traffic spikes without any downtime or slowing down your website.

Security – It comes with many advanced security features to block DDoS attacks, brute force attacks, JavaScript/SQL-injection attacks, and more. They also offer a free cleanup service if your site gets hacked on their platform.

Daily Backup – They include daily backup as part of all their plans.

Advanced Features – WP Engine offers advanced features for developers, businesses, and agencies including 1-click staging websites, GIT version control, transferable installs, and more.

Speed – WP Engine’s EverCache offers server level caching for everything including a CDN to ensure faster load times.

Free Themes – All WP Engine accounts include 30 premium WordPress themes from StudioPress which is a great value for WordPress users.

Cons of WP Engine

WP Engine offers cutting-edge technologies and powerful web hosting services, but there are some disadvantages too.

Blocked Plugins – WP Engine maintains a list of WordPress plugins that you cannot install on your site. These plugins are either incompatible or conflict with the existing WP Engine features.

Expensive – WP Engine is more expensive than shared hosting platforms. The services they offer are well-worth investment if your business can afford it.

WP Engine Reviews

WP Engine has a 4.9 star rating on WPBeginner based on 64 user reviews. We also ran our own tests to measure their performance and reliability, you can read all about it in our complete WP Engine review.

The best part about WP Engine is that they offer a reliable platform which is great for uptime and an excellent support team that is always there to help when needed. Overall, WP Engine is by far the most reputable managed WordPress hosting provider in the world.

SiteGround vs Bluehost vs WP Engine – Which is Better?

Now that we have compared different features of SiteGround vs Bluehost vs WP Engine, you may still be wondering which one of them is better?

The answer actually depends on your own requirements.

For instance, if you want to start an online business or a new online store, but don’t want to spend a fortune, then Bluehost offers an excellent value. It is low cost and offers a reliable, fast, and easy to use platform.

On the other hand, if you can afford to spend a little more on premium hosting, then SiteGround would be a better choice for you. For extra money you get faster support, optimized WordPress platform, and super fast website. It gives you the best of both worlds, great value and great performance.

Lastly, if you are looking for a concierge WordPress hosting service, then WP Engine offers an all in one platform. It is robust, easy to use, advanced features for developers, offers enhanced security, and more.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Having helped thousands of users choose the best web host for their needs, we have answered quite a few questions. Here are some of the answers to the most frequently asked questions about SiteGround vs Bluehost vs WP Engine.

How did you check the web hosting speed for Bluehost vs SiteGround vs WP Engine?

We use independent third-party tools like Pingdom, LoadImpact, and Bitcatcha to test the performance and reliability of each company, so we can help you choose the best WordPress hosting for your business.

To accurately measure performance across all WordPress hosting companies, we create a sample WordPress site on each hosting provider and install the default WordPress theme. Next, we import sample content including images and media, so our test resembles an average user website.

You can see detailed performance test results in our detailed Bluehost review, SiteGround review, and WP Engine review.

Can I use Subdomains for my site?

Yes, you can use subdomains on all three of these companies. If it’s a staging site, then it doesn’t count against your 1 website limit. However if you’re looking to create multiple websites, then you’ll need to upgrade to a higher plan.

​Does SiteGround use cPanel?

No, SiteGround does not use cPanel. They have built a custom control panel to offer an improved user experience. This has allowed them to add more premium tools similar to WP Engine.

​Between SiteGround, WP Engine, and Bluehost, only Bluehost still offers cPanel hosting. Even though Bluehost has created a custom control panel as well, you can click on the Advanced menu to access cPanel inside Bluehost.

Does WP Engine offer email accounts?

No, WP Engine does not offer email accounts. They specialize in managed WordPress hosting services and prefer that you use specialized business email address solutions like Google Workspace (G Suite).

Bluehost and SiteGround on the other hand both offer free business email addresses that you can create from your account area. Bluehost also let you purchase premium business emails from Office365 right inside the Bluehost dashboard.

If you’re looking to fix email deliverability for sending bulk emails, then all providers recommend that you use a reliable third-party SMTP service with the WP Mail SMTP plugin.

For sending marketing emails, we recommend that you use a proper email marketing service. Here’s a list of the best email marketing services.

Why is SiteGround so expensive?

When comparing with other shared hosting providers like Bluehost, HostGator, Dreamhost, etc, SiteGround pricing can definitely be considered more expensive. However it’s because they have significantly improved their infrastructure by making the switch to Google Cloud platform. They have also built advanced caching to boost performance, powerful development tools like Staging sites, Git workflows, Ultrafast PHP, WP CLI support, and more.

Previously you’d have to upgrade to a managed WordPress hosting provider to get these powerful features. Now SiteGround offers these to small businesses at a more affordable price.

It’s really not fair to compare SiteGround prices with other shared hosting companies anymore because they’re truly creating a new category for premium WordPress hosting.

When do you need managed WordPress hosting?

As a beginner, you might be wondering is managed WordPress hosting really that much better? If so, then when is the right time to upgrade to managed WordPress hosting.

We have covered all of this in our detailed guide on when do you need managed WordPress hosting.

But in summary, if you’re just starting a blog or a small business website, then you don’t need managed WordPress hosting.

As your website grows, and you start getting high-traffic, then we recommend considering a managed platform, so you can delegate the technical side and focus on growing your business.

However if you have the budget to spend a bit more for exceptional service, then you can use managed hosting at any time you’re ready.

Are there other hosting providers that you haven’t covered in this comparison?

Yes there are literally thousands of web hosting companies in the market including HostGator, GoDaddy, Dreamhost, InMotion Hosting, Hostinger, GreenGeeks, Pagely, Liquid Web, Kinsta, A2 hosting, etc.

We only compared SiteGround vs Bluehost vs WP Engine because they’re the most popular WordPress hosting companies.

Do you have any special discounts for SiteGround, Bluehost, or WP Engine?

Yes, because WPBeginner is the largest WordPress resource site, our users can get special discounts on popular hosting providers as well as other WordPress plugins. You can see all 100+ WordPress deals here.

You can use our Bluehost coupon to get over 60% off + free domain.

Our WP Engine coupon gets you 4 months free on the annual plans.

Our SiteGround coupon gets you over 63% off on web hosting.

We hope this comparison of SiteGround vs Bluehost vs WP Engine helped you decide which platform is better for your new website. You may also want to see our checklist of things to do before launching a WordPress site, and our expert pick of best WordPress plugins for all websites.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post SiteGround vs Bluehost vs WP Engine (Honest Comparison) appeared first on WPBeginner.

March 02, 2021 at 05:30PM

How to Prevent Invalid AdSense Clicks in WordPress (Step by Step)

Do you want to learn how to prevent invalid AdSense clicks in WordPress?

Invalid AdSense clicks are the result of clicks and impressions that are typically generated by bots or spammers. High number of invalid clicks can get your AdSense account suspended.

In this article, we’ll show you how to prevent invalid AdSense clicks in WordPress, so you can keep your account in good standing.

What are Invalid Adsense Clicks?

Invalid AdSense clicks are any clicks to your ads that occur from invalid traffic.

What does Google consider invalid traffic?

• Clicks or impressions from website owners clicking their ads
• Repeated ad clicks or impressions from one or more users
• Website owners who are manipulating users to accidentally click their ads
• Automated tools like bots and robots to manipulate impressions and clicks

If you’re getting real people viewing and clicking your ads, then you’re fine.

But, sometimes, you’ll have traffic coming to your website from low-quality sources. One form of this is bot traffic that clicks on display ads.

Does Google AdSense Detect Invalid Clicks?

Yes, Google has a very sophisticated platform that will automatically detect all invalid clicks.

Usually, Google will not take action against accounts unless high levels of invalid traffic and clicks have occurred.

Having small amounts of bot and crawler traffic, double ad clicks, and other errors are common, so they tend to ignore it.

However, Google will automatically adjust your account earnings to take out bot traffic and fake clicks. These adjustments happen both in real-time and at the end of the month.

The best way to avoid an account penalty is to stop invalid traffic from reaching your site in the first place. You can report invalid clicks to the Google Adsense team, but this doesn’t free your account from the responsibility.

How to Protect AdSense from Invalid Clicks in WordPress

Invalid clicks are a threat to your WordPress blog and ability to make money online, especially if it’s an ongoing problem.

There are three things you can do to help keep your Google AdSense account in good standing:

• Monitor your traffic and identify any invalid sources
• Make sure your ad placements are in alignment with AdSense guidelines
• Use an AdSense protection WordPress plugin to block invalid traffic and clicks

Understand Your Ad Traffic and WordPress Visitors

The root problem of invalid AdSense clicks is your traffic.

As a WordPress website owner, you are responsible for the traffic your website receives. That’s why it’s extremely important to understand how people find and use your website.

The easiest way to monitor your website traffic and analytics is with MonsterInsights. It’s the best analytics solution for WordPress and is used by over 2 million website owners like you.

There’s also a free version of MonsterInsights that gives you access to your most important analytics data.

For more details, see our guide on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress.

Once you’ve set up the plugin, you can view your Google Analytics reports within your WordPress dashboard. Simply go to Insights » Reports to get a quick overview of your traffic.

You can compare your Google Analytics and Google AdSense data to see if any traffic sources are the cause of invalid clicks.

Maybe you’ve found that a single low-quality referring website is sending spam traffic your way?

Or, when you post in a certain Facebook group, the traffic back to your website is mostly bot traffic?

Avoid Accidental Visitor Clicks in WordPress

You could be getting invalid clicks from your visitors accidentally clicking on ads.

Suppose your ads are too similar to the rest of your content, or your ads are in positions that make your site hard to use. In that case, your visitors could be clicking on your ads by mistake.

For example, if you have an ad directly below a drop-down menu, this could cause visitors to click that ad on accident.

Another common mistake is using ad units that look like your content and navigation links. If a user clicks the ad, thinking they’re navigating around your website, this could lead to accidental clicks.

For more details on AdSense ad placement, see our step by step guide on how to optimize your AdSense revenue in WordPress.

Block Invalid Traffic Sources With a WordPress Plugin

If your ads are correctly set up, but you’re still getting a warning from Google, then you’ll want to block invalid traffic sources with a WordPress plugin.

To do this, we recommend using the AdSense Invalid Click Protector plugin. It’s highly customizable so that you can block traffic and users according to your needs.

With this plugin, you can block entire countries, set a maximum number of ad clicks per user, block visitors when they hit your ad limit, block IP addresses, and more.

The first thing you’ll need to do is install the AdSense Invalid Click Protector plugin. For more details on installing a plugin, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

After the plugin is installed and activated, you’ll have a new navigation option in your WordPress dashboard called ‘AdSense Invalid Click Protector’.

Next, you’ll need to configure the plugin settings. To do this, navigate to Adsense Invalid Click Protector » General Settings.

On this screen, you’ll set the conditions for the kind of behavior and traffic you want to block.

We’re going to set the ‘Ad Click Limit’ to 2, so a visitor can only click on an ad twice before it stops displaying.

Next, we’ll set the ‘Click Counter Cookie Expiration Time’ to 5 hours. This means that after 5 hours, your ads will display again for that user.

After that, we’ll leave the ‘Visitor Ban Duration’ at the default 7 days. This will stop your ads from being shown to banned visitors for 7 days.

To block ads from showing for specific countries, set the ‘Do you want to block showing ads for some specific countries?’ checkbox to ‘Yes’. Or, leave as ‘No’ if you don’t want to block specific countries.

Then, enter the country code for the country you want to block.

Make sure to click ‘Save Changes’ before exiting the screen.

After you’ve set up your block settings, you’ll need to add the plugin code to your existing AdSense ad units.

Where you add the code depends on how you’ve added your Google AdSense code to WordPress.

If you manually added your AdSense code to WordPress, then you’ll need to locate every instance of the code across your site.

If you’re using a plugin to manage your ads, then navigate to the plugin and open up your AdSense code block. It’ll look similar to the code below.

Once you’ve done that, you’ll need to add the following code before your AdSense ad code block:

if( aicp_can_see_ads() ) { /* Your AdSense code goes here */ }

Then, wrap your ad code in a simple div tag:

<div class="aicp">...your ad code goes here...</div>

Your final ad code will look something like this:

if( aicp_can_see_ads() ) { 
<div class="aicp">
<script async src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
<!-- AdSense Responsive Ad Code -->
<ins class="adsbygoogle"
        style="display:block"
        data-ad-client="ca-pub-1234567890"
        data-ad-slot="0123456789"
        data-ad-format="auto">
</ins>
<script>
        (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
</script>
</div>
}

After you add the plugin code to your Google AdSense ads, your ads will display based on the block settings you assigned earlier.

If you prefer a hands-off solution, then there is a premium plugin called WP Advanced Ads Pro that has click fraud protection built-in.

You can enable click fraud protection directly from the plugin settings. There is no additional code you need to add to your site.

We hoped this article helped you prevent invalid AdSense clicks in WordPress. You may also want to see our collection of the best WordPress ad management plugins and solutions, and our expert pick of 24 must have WordPress plugins for businesses.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Prevent Invalid AdSense Clicks in WordPress (Step by Step) appeared first on WPBeginner.

March 01, 2021 at 06:00PM