Josh Vogel

Google Analytics 4 – The Time to Get Ready is Now

|

As I was doing some work for a client of mine I was checking out their analytics in preparation to set up a new site for them. Across the top of the screen when I entered the site I saw the following notice: “Universal Analytics will no longer process new data in standard properties beginning July 1, 2023. Prepare now by setting up and switching over to a Google Analytics 4 property.” Now granted, I don’t stay on top of Analytics news so much, as in the development world we are much more concerned with geting the code out than caring how much revenue or traffic it generates, but I was surprised that nothing about this had come across my radar as of yet.

So here’s the deal: Google is upgrading their analytics, presumably as a result of various market pressures, including GDPR and probably also Apple limiting how users can be trackeda cross devices. I’m guessing that the accuracy of the current code they are using is suffering as a result of this so the new version is going to address this via other technologies (not entirely sure how it work,s maybe this is some fodder for another blog post).

But, if you are really, savvy, the coming two weeks are really the best opportunity to get GA4, as it is being referred to, up and running on your site. This is because data from “Universal Analytics” (i.e. GA3) is not being transferred over to GA4 and GA3 will stop transmitting data on July 1, 2023, so if you wait until anytime after July 1 of this year, 2022, you will have a slight gap in your data if year-over-year (or really any time period over any other time period) is something you rely on when analyzing your traffic. I’m really curious how many site administrators are aware of this upcoming change. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the date gets pushed back if Google is seeing that a large portion of their analyitcs customers aren’t swtiched over in the near future.

So, if you’re a data-loving website owner and you want to continue to have the very best analytics possible, the time is now to set up your GA4 credentials. There is nothing stopping one from having botht the old and new analytics on their site, in fact, this is what is being advised by multiple sources, because otherwise you would just introduce that gap in your data today, rather than from a year from now and that is what should be avoided.

Fixing Email Issues in WordPress Part 2

|

Today I fully resolved a issue where emails generated by a client’s WordPress site were only reaching the spam folder of intended recipients instead of their regular inbox. In order to resolve this issue, I relied on the implementation of a plugin, namely WP Mail SMTP. I have used this plugin in the past and am generally satisfied with it, though in the case of this customer it seems to show an error screen for an unexplained reason even though edits are being saved as they should be. Perhaps this is an issue with the version of the plugin or with the versionmy client is running, which granted, is not the most recent version (more blog posts coming as I update their site!).

The documentation for the plugin is straighforward and since my client is a subscriber to Google Workplaces or whatever it is called, it was simple to set it up so that the emails from WordPress went through the Gmail API. The client does not send a high volume of emails (basically just password resets and registration confirmations) so there is low risk of hitting Gmail’s rate limits imposed on the API. If you do send a lot of email from your WordPress, the plugin suggests other email providers who specialize in large volume email sending and which also have seamless integration with the plugin I am using.

I am glad I was able to help this client resolve their issues and I look forward to solving the email/Wordpress needs of other clients in the future (possibly even you)!

WordPress emails not showing up?

|

Do you have emails generated by your WordPress site but they are not showing up in the inbox of your customers? This was the issue one of my clients was having recently and I went to take a look. After reviewing the settings for the plugin it was clear what the issue was: the emails were being generated by the generic “wordpress@domain.com” email address. These email addresses are notoriously flagged for being spam and if they do reach your user’s inbox, they will most probably go to spam.

This speicifc customer’s issue was that the emails weren’t even reaching spam. A simple change of the originating email now makes these emails arrive into spam, though we all agree this is the ideal solution to the issue. I am working with the customer’s hosting and email provider to setup a proper SMTP routing from her site so that the issue is fully resolved.

What causes the issue is that PHP has the ablility to generate its own emails, but these come with none of the provenance that legitimate emails do. Spammers, ever ones to seize an opportunity, realized they could set up WordPress servers galore to just generate tons of spam. Luckily we have good spam filters today, but the downside is that the good guys like us get hurt and need to spend more time and resources to get our legitimate emails out to our customers. I look forward to sharing updates on the solution as well as other quick hints in the future.

Grant from Absorption Ministry to Digitize your Business

|

If you have a business in Israel and are looking to set up a website for your wares or to introduce electronic payments, the Ministry of Absorption is offering NIS 5000 grants for a limited number of applicants to assist with doing so.

Here is the link to the form to fill out and submit:

Appication Form

Of course, I am happy to help assist you with making these upgrades should you receive the grant. B’Hatzlacha/good luck!

Show me the Cache

|

via GIPHY

I’ve been doing a lot of work for one of my clients recently, which has involved overhauling a lot of the data models that are used on the site. A few weeks ago, while I was doing this, I finished testing and was ready to deploy to production. I follow the process I was aware of and none of the changes I had made were appearing. This was obviously very concerning. Cue the hours of searching for something wrong with your code, double-checking every last bit, testing again in UAT, etc., etc., AND NOTHING WORKS.

Then it hits you. The cache.

Now, granted, it would seem that the official documentation for deploying updates for the framework I am working in for this project (CakePHP 4) does say to run a command to clear the cache each time you make a deployment, but at the same time if I know what is needed to be done to migrate my changes into the database, why isn’t the cache cleared automatically when the migration occurs? Is there an opernational reason for this behavior?

Also, the cache refresh period on a production run of CakePHP 4 is really long (365 days according to the docs) without any seeming way to reduce it. This also almost tripped me up when I was doing some i18n work on the, a post for another time.

Anyway, if you’re running into issues between prod and loiwer environments after testing is complete, the cache is a great place to look if it is causing your issues.