Allow users to add favorite posts in wordpress

First thing you need to do is install and activate the WP Favorite Posts plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit Settings » WP Favorite Posts to configure plugin settings.

First option on the settings page is to enable ‘Add to favorite’ option for registered users only. You need to leave this unchecked if you want all visitors to see the ‘Add to favorite’ button.

Next, you need to choose where to show the ‘add to favorite’ link. The plugin can automatically show it before or after the post content. Advanced users can also choose custom method and use <?php wpfp_link() ?> template tag inside WordPress theme files.

Now you need to choose the image icon you want to show next to ‘Add to favorite’ link. The plugin comes with a few images that you can use. You can also upload your own image or don’t show any image at all.

After that you can choose the number of posts you would like to show on your favorite posts page. The default option is 20, you can change that if you want.

Lastly, you can enable or disable statistics. You will need to keep it enabled if you want to show most favorited posts in the sidebar widget.

Don’t forget to click on the ‘Update Options’ button to store your settings.

You can now visit any single post on your website and you will see the Add to Favorite link.

Showing Most Favorited Posts in WordPress

You may want to show your most favorited posts in your blog’s sidebar. Here is how you would do that.

Head over to Appearance » Widgets page. Under the list of available widgets you will notice ‘Most Favorited Posts’ widget. You will need to drag and drop this widget to a sidebar. If you need help adding widget, then check out our guide on how to add and use widgets in WordPress.

You can select the number of posts you want to show in the widget. Don’t forget to click on the save button to store your widget settings.

You can now visit your website to see the most favorited posts in your blog’s sidebar.

Showing a User’s Favorite Posts in WordPress

This plugin stores favorite posts for non-registered users in cookies. For registered users, it saves their favorite posts in your WordPress database.

Here is how you can show each user their favorite posts on your site.

Head over to Appearane » Widgets page and add ‘Users Favorite Posts’ widget to a sidebar.

Resource

https://www.wpbeginner.com/plugins/how-to-allow-users-to-add-favorite-posts-in-wordpress/

Prevent spam on your entry level Blog

The settings for controlling comments in WordPress is available under Settings > Discussion. Please note that this is the manual method of preventing/combating spam and is usually the most effective when you have a few comments every day. However, if you have over 1000 daily comments, it is more feasible to use an antispam plugin.

Let’s discuss certain ways to use these default WordPress settings to prevent spam. We will discuss one section at a time.

Default Article Settings

Simply disable trackbacks and pingbacks to save yourself from half the spam traffic. Only allow people to post comments on new articles.

Other Comment Settings

It is almost always necessary for the comment author to enter his name/email before commenting. WordPress enables this by default. If you require users to log in before leaving comments then this will cut down on a significant amount of spam This step might be a turn off for few legit readers who want to leave a comment but don’t want to sign in. Therefore you must carefully analyze before enabling this feature.

You should disable comments on posts older than 90 days in a fairly active blog. However, if you keep updating articles, make sure to change the published date so that the 90 days boundary doesn’t overlap. Keep Threaded comments to the default or increase it if required.

E-mail Me Whenever

You can use this feature if you don’t get thousands of comments on your posts. You will get email notifications for every comment that pops up and you can mark it spam right away cutting down on a section of spam comments.

Before a Comment Appears

Allowing readers who have previously left a comment, to leave a comment again without requiring any approval, will help you cut down the legit comments in the moderation queue. You’ll only have to focus on the remainder of users, mostly of which will be spam.

Comment Moderation

I suggest you use a value of 2. This ideally allows guest bloggers to leave at most one outgoing link (link bait) in their comment. Building an effective comment moderation blacklist is a very time-consuming process, with equally beneficial payoffs. However, you can leverage this setting as an effective profanity filter. Simply add the profane words to the list and all such comments will be added to the moderation queue.

Comment Blacklist

Comment Blacklist is stricter version of the Comment Moderation Blacklist, where if a comment contains a blacklisted word, it is sent to the spam queue, instead of the moderation queue. The benefit – saves your time.

Check and change PHP version in Azure WordPress App service

I am running WordPress as Azure App service. My current configuration for the technology stack is;

I did a Site health check on WordPress dashboard; Tools->Site Health, WordPress site health status shows that I am running an older version of PHP.

I figured I should be changing my Stack settings from .NET to PHP.  I made the change hoping it wouldn’t break the application;

Technology stack is changed from .NET to PHP without any issues.

I went back to WordPress dashboard and ran Site Health. PHP version issue solved.

If someone is running WordPress on Linux, this is a good reference;