How To

Hide My WP Ghost 5.0.12 brings new ways customize or hide the classes from your source code.

Hide Class Name

If you want to completely hide a class use the {blank} pattern to accomplish that.

Random Class Name

If you want to set a random id for a specific class, use the {rand} pattern to accomplish that.

The most common classes used by WordPress and can be detected by theme detectors are those who contain the prefix wp-. Check the website source code and see if you find classes with wp- and add them in the Text Mapping.

Demo Text Mapping in Hide My WP Ghost

Here is a list of classes we usually add in Text Mapping for our WordPress websites:

Read Also: Do I Need to Hide WordPress From Detectors or Hackers?

Once you installed Hide My WP Ghost plugin on your website, the plugin will add by default a widget in the WordPress Dashboard with the security status for every single day.

In this widget, the plugin verifies the critical tasks from Security Check like Brute Force on login path, Script Insertion, SQL Insertion, XML-RPC Vulnerability, SSL security, HTML Headers and more.

You will get a level of security based on how many vulnerabilities were found and you can check the full report with a simple click.

Activate/Deactivate Hide My WP in Dashboard

To activate/deactivate the widget, simply go to Screen Options and check/uncheck the Hide My WP box.

Please follow this tutorial step by step to set up the Hide My WP Ghost for IIS server:

1. In your WordPress dashboard, go to Hide My WP > Change Paths
2. Select the Safe Mode or Ghost Mode,  scroll down and customize the paths as you like

3. Click the Save button to save the changes.
4. You will see a message to include the rewrite rules into web.config file located in the root directory of your website.

This is how the web.config file should look like before you add the rules:

This is how the web.config file should look like after you add the rules:

5. After you add the lines in your config file, save it and go back to your Hide My Wp Ghost settings and press the “Okay, I set it up” button.

6. Note: You need to reload the IIS server to apply the changes.

7. Check the Frontend Login page and make sure the paths are correct. If everything loads fine, click “Yes, it’s working” button. Otherwise click on “No, abort” to roll back to previous settings.

After you install Hide My WP Ghost plugin and select Safe Mode or Ghost Mode, make sure you follow the instruction based on your server type after you save the settings.

Now, if you followed all the notifications from Hide My WP settings, there are some situations when the website loads slower in frontend or the theme is now showing correctly:

Attention! Please check the rewrite rules in the config file. Some URLs passed through the config file rules and are loaded through WordPress which may slow down your website or not load correctly.

On Apache & Litespeed servers

1. All the rewrite rules are loaded through .htaccess file which works instantly for Apache and Litespeed servers. If the rewrites are not loaded through .htaccess, they are handled by WordPress redirects and as they use more resources, they will load slower.

To make sure the rules are loaded through .htaccess you need to first check the .htaccess file and you should see the rules starting with #BEGIN HMWP_RULES and ending with #END HMWP_RULES like in this example:

# BEGIN HMWP_RULES
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?ajax$ /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php [QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?custom-admin/(.*) /wp-admin/$2 [QSA,L]
..........
</IfModule>
# END HMWP_RULES

Also, make sure to activate AllowOverride All for your directory. See how to do this:

• https://hidemywpghost.com/kb/how-to-set-allowoverride-all/
• https://hidemywpghost.com/how-to-enable-allowoverwrite-on-google-cloud-platform/

For Cyberpanel with LiteSpeed you need to specify the .htaccess path where you have the rewrites:

• https://cyberpanel.net/blog/2018/04/07/how-to-write-rewrite-rules-for-openlitespeed/

If Hide My WP Ghost detects the rewrites are handled by WordPress and not by the config file you will get a notification in the Hide My WP settings after you check your website as a visitor:

Solution: After the settings are saved, change the .htaccess to read-only or to 0440 if you have Linux. This way the rules will not be removed by other plugins.

2. If you activate the Text Mapping in CSS and JS option, all the CSS and JS URLs will load dynamically as this is the only option to change the text in these files. Even with a cache plugin, you may experience a slower website as the CSS and JS are not cached on the first call.

https://hidemywpghost.com/kb/url-mapping-text-mapping/#text_mapping

If you want to use this option, use a cache plugin like Autoptimize or WP Rocket and Combine all the CSS and JS files into one. Set the cache to be deleted once a week or even once a month.

We encourage you to switch off the option Text Mapping in CSS and JS files including caches as it’s not improving the security but only hides classes and ids from theme detectors.

On Nginx servers

1. All the rewrite rules are loaded through nginx.conf file which works instantly for Nginx servers. If the rewrites are not loaded through nginx.conf file, they are handled by WordPress redirects and as they use more resources, they will load slower.

Make sure the rules are loaded through nginx.conf and you restarted Nginx server after you changed the paths.

Check if you have the line include path_to_file/hidemywp.conf in nginx.conf file as detailed in these examples:

• https://hidemywpghost.com/how-to-setup-hide-my-wp-on-nginx-server/
• https://hidemywpghost.com/how-to-configure-hide-my-wp-on-nginx-web-server-with-virtual-private-server/

If Hide My WP Ghost detects the rewrites are handled by WordPress and not by the config file you will get a notification in the Hide My WP settings after you check your website as a visitor:

On Windows IIS servers

1. All the rewrite rules are loaded through web.config file which works instantly for IIS servers with URL Rewrites 2 tool installed. If the rewrites are not loaded through web.config file, they are handled by WordPress redirects and as they use more resources, they will load slower.

Make sure you added the rules in web.config and restarted IIS server after you changed the paths.

https://hidemywpghost.com/kb/setup-hide-my-wp-on-windows-iis-server/

If Hide My WP Ghost detects the rewrites are handled by WordPress and not by the config file you will get a notification in the Hide My WP settings after you check your website as a visitor:

Other servers

For servers like Amazon Bitnami, Inmotion, WPEngine, Godaddy, Google Cloud, Flyweel, Kinsta, WPMUDEV, RunCloud, etc. please make sure you followed the instruction from Hide My WP Ghost after you saved the settings:

Amazon Bitnami Server: https://hidemywpghost.com/how-to-set-hide-my-wp-for-bitnami-servers/

WP Engine Server: https://hidemywpghost.com/hide-my-wp-pro-compatible-with-wp-engine/

Inmotion Server: https://hidemywpghost.com/hide-my-wp-pro-compatible-with-inmotion-wordpress-hosting/

Google Cloud: https://hidemywpghost.com/how-to-enable-allowoverwrite-on-google-cloud-platform/

Godaddy Server: https://hidemywpghost.com/how-to-use-hide-my-wp-with-godaddy/

AWS Lightsail Server: https://hidemywpghost.com/how-to-setup-hide-my-wp-on-amazon-aws-lightsail/

Flyweel Server: https://hidemywpghost.com/how-to-setup-hide-my-wp-on-flywheel-server/

Kinsta Server: https://hidemywpghost.com/kinsta-server-hide-my-wp-ghost-setup/

WPMUDEV Server: https://hidemywpghost.com/wpmudev-server-hide-my-wp-ghost-setup/

RunCloud Server: https://hidemywpghost.com/setup-hide-my-wp-on-runcloud/

Ploi Server: https://hidemywpghost.com/setup-hide-my-wp-on-ploi-io/

Ubuntu Server

In case you are on Ubuntu, edit the file /etc/apache2/apache2.conf (here we have an example of /var/www):

<Directory /var/www/>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
        Require all granted
</Directory>

and change it to;

<Directory /var/www/>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
</Directory>

then,

sudo service apache2 restart

You may need to also do sudo a2enmod rewrite to enable module rewrite.

Centos 7,8 Server

If you have Centos server, edit the file /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

And depending on what directory level you want to relax access to, you have to change the directive

AllowOverride None

to

AllowOverride All

So, assuming you want to allow access to files on the /var/www/html directory, you should change the following lines from:

<Directory "/var/www/html">
 AllowOverride None
</Directory>

to

<Directory "/var/www/html">
 AllowOverride All
</Directory>

You may need to also do sudo httpd rewrite to restart the Apache.

How to check if .htaccess is loading:
Make sure .htaccess is working with Allowoverride All – Hide My WP Ghost

You can find more situations here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18740419/how-to-set-allowoverride-all

Are you looking to move WordPress from HTTP to HTTPS and install an SSL certificate on your website? We have been getting a lot of requests on this topic because Google announced that Chrome browser will start marking all websites without SSL as insecure starting July 2018. In this article, we will show you how to properly move WordPress from HTTP to HTTPs by adding a SSL certificate.

Don’t worry, if you have no idea what SSL or HTTPS is. We’re going to explain that as well.

What is HTTPS?

HTTPS or Secure HTTP is an encryption method that secures the connection between users’ browser and your server. This makes it harder for hackers to eavesdrop on the connection.

Every day we share our personal information with different websites whether it’s making a purchase or simply logging in.

In order to protect the data transfer, a secure connection needs to be created.

That’s when SSL and HTTPS come in.

Each site is issued a unique SSL certificate for identification purposes. If a server is pretending to be on HTTPS, and its certificate doesn’t match, then most modern browsers will warn the user from connecting to the website.

Now you are probably wondering, why do I need to move my WordPress site from HTTP to HTTPS especially if it’s a simple blog or small business website that doesn’t collect any payments.

Why do you need HTTPS and SSL?

Last year Google announced a plan to improve overall web security by encouraging website owners to make the switch from HTTP to HTTPS. As part of this plan, their popular Chrome web browser would mark all websites without an SSL certificate as “Not Secure” starting July 2018.

As part of the announcement, Google also said that websites with SSL will also see SEO benefits and higher rankings. Since last year, a large number of websites have switched from HTTP to HTTPS.

Google has been slowly rolling out the “Not Secure” warning in Chrome. For example, if someone visits a HTTP website using the incognito window, it will be marked as Not Secure. If someone visits a HTTP website on regular mode and tries to fill out a contact form or another form, then the website will be marked as insecure.

When your readers and customers see this notice, it gives them a bad impression for your business.

This is why all websites need to move form HTTP to HTTPS and install SSL immediately.

Not to mention, if you want to accept payments online on your eCommerce website, then you need SSL.

Most payment companies like Stripe, PayPal Pro, Authorize.net, etc will require you to have a secure connection before accepting payments.

We use SSL for our websites including WPBeginner, OptinMonster, WPForms, and MonsterInsights.

Requirements for using HTTPS/SSL on a WordPress Site

The requirements for using SSL in WordPress is not very high. All you need to do is purchase an SSL certificate, and you might already have it for free.

The best WordPress hosting companies are offering free SSL certificates for all their users:

• Bluehost
• SiteGround
• WPEngine
• Liquid Web
• Dreamhost
• InMotion Hosting
• GreenGeeks

For more details, see our guide on how to get a free SSL certificate for your WordPress website.

If your hosting company does not offer a free SSL certificate, then you’ll need to purchase an SSL certificate.

We recommend using Domain.com because they offer the best SSL deal for both regular and wildcard SSL certificates.

By purchasing a SSL certificate from them, you also get a TrustLogo site seal for your website, and each SSL certificate comes with a minimum of $10,000 security warranty.

Once you have purchased an SSL certificate, you will need to ask your hosting provider to install it for you.

Setting up WordPress to Use SSL and HTTPs

After you have enabled SSL certificate on your domain name, you will need to set up WordPress to use SSL and HTTPs protocols on your website.

We will show you two methods to do that, and you can choose one that best fits your need.

Method 1: Setup SSL/HTTPS in WordPress Using a Plugin

This method is easier and is recommended for beginners.

First, you need to install and activate the Really Simple SSL plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit Settings » SSL page. The plugin will automatically detect your SSL certificate, and it will set up your WordPress site to use HTTPs.

The plugin will take care of everything including the mixed content errors. Here’s what the plugin does behind the scenes:

• Check SSL certificate
• Set WordPress to use https in URLs
• Set up redirects from HTTP to HTTPs
• Look for URLs in your content still loading from insecure HTTP sources and attempt to fix them.

Note: The plugin attempts to fix mixed content errors by using output buffering technique. It can have a negative performance impact because it’s replacing content on the site as the page is being loaded. This impact is only seen on first-page load, and it should be minimal if you are using a caching plugin.

While the plugin says you can keep SSL and safely deactivate the plugin, it’s not 100% true. You will have to leave the plugin active at all times because deactivating the plugin will bring back mixed content errors.

Method 2: Setup SSL/HTTPS in WordPress Manually

This method requires you to troubleshoot issues manually and edit WordPress files. However this is a permanent and more performance optimized solution. This is what we’re using on WPBeginner.

If you find this method difficult, then you can hire a WordPress developer or use the first method instead.

As part of this method, you may need to edit WordPress theme and code files. If you haven’t done this before, then see our guide on how to copy and paste code snippets in WordPress.

First, you need to visit Settings » General page. From here you need to update your WordPress and site URL address fields by replacing http with https.

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

Once the settings are saved, WordPress will log you out, and you will be asked to re-login.

Next, you need to set up WordPress redirects from HTTP to HTTPS by adding the following code to your .htaccess file.

If you are on nginx servers (most users are not), then you would need to add the following code to redirect from HTTP to HTTPS in your configuration file:

Don’t forget to replace example.com with your own domain name.

By following these steps, you will avoid the WordPress HTTPS not working error because WordPress will now load your entire website using https.

If you want to force SSL and HTTPS on your WordPress admin area or login pages, then you need to configure SSL in the wp-config.php file.

Simply add the following code above the “That’s all, stop editing!” line in your wp-config.php file:

This line allows WordPress to force SSL / HTTPs in WordPress admin area. It also works on WordPress multisite networks.

Once you do this, your website is now fully setup to use SSL / HTTPS, but you will still encounter mixed content errors.

These errors are caused by sources (images, scripts, or stylesheets) that are still loading using the insecure HTTP protocol in the URLs. If that is the case, then you will not be able to see a secure padlock icon in your website’s address bar.

Many modern browsers will automatically block unsafe scripts and resources. You may see a padlock icon but with a notification about it in your browser’s address bar.

You can find out which content is served through insecure protocol by using the Inspect tool. The mixed content error will be displayed as a warning in the console with details for each mixed content item.

You will notice that most URLs are images, iframes, and image galleries while some are scripts and stylesheets loaded by your WordPress plugins and themes.

Fixing Mixed Content in WordPress Database

Majority of the incorrect URLs will be images, files, embeds, and other data stored in your WordPress database. Let’s fix them first.

All what you need to do is find all mentions of your old website URL in the database that started with http and replace it with your new website URL that starts with https.

You can easily do this by installing and activating the Better Search Replace plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit Tools » Better Search Replace page. Under the ‘Search’ field, you need to add your website URL with http. After that, add your website URL with https under the ‘Replace’ field.

Below that, you will see all your WordPress database tables. You need to select all of them to run a thorough check.

Lastly, you need to uncheck the box next to ‘Run as dry run?’ option, and then click on ‘Run Search/Replace’ button.

The plugin will now search your WordPress database for URLs starting with http and will replace them with secure https URLs. It may take a while depending on your WordPress database size.

Fixing Mixed Content Errors in WordPress Theme

Another common culprit causing mixed content error is your WordPress theme. Any decent WordPress theme following WordPress coding standards will not cause this issue.

First, you will need to use your browser’s Inspect tool to find the resources and where they are loading from.

After that, you will need to find them in your WordPress theme and replace them with https. This will be a little difficult for most beginners, as you will not be able to see which theme files contain these URLs.

Fixing Mixed Content Errors Caused by Plugins

Some mixed content resources will be loaded by WordPress plugins. Any WordPress plugin following WordPress coding standards will not cause mixed content errors.

We don’t recommend editing WordPress plugin files. Instead, you need to reach out to the plugin author and let them know. If they do not respond or are unable to fix it, then you need to find a suitable alternate.

Note: If for some reason, you’re still encountering mixed content error, then we recommend using the Really Simple SSL plugin temporarily, so your users are not impacted while you fix the issue on a staging website or hire a developer.

Submit Your HTTPS Site to Google Search Console

Search engines like Google consider https and http as two different websites. This means you will need to let Google know that your website has moved to avoid any SEO issues.

To do that, you just need to go to your Google Search Console account and click on ‘Add a Property’ button.

This will bring up a popup where you need to add your website’s new https address.

After that, Google will ask you to verify ownership of your website. There are several ways to do that, select any method and you will instructions to verify your site.

Once your site is verified, Google will start showing your search console reports here.

You also need to make sure that both the https and http versions are added in your Search Console.

This tells Google that you want the https version of your website to be treated as the primary version. Combined with the 301 redirects that you setup earlier, Google will transfer your search rankings to the https version of your website, and you will most likely see improvements in your search rankings.

We know that we did when switched our websites from http to https.

We hope this article helped you add HTTPS and SSL in WordPress. You may also want to see our ultimate WordPress security guide with step by step instructions to keep your WordPress site secure.

Source: https://www.wpbeginner.com

What is DNS-Prefetch ?

DNS prefetching is an attempt to resolve domain names before a user tries to follow a link. This is done using the computer’s normal DNS resolution mechanism.

The main reason for rel=dns-prefetch to exist is to speed up the way web pages load when they are using different domains for page resources. This process is often called “DNS prefetching“.

The WordPress link looks like this:

  <link rel='dns-prefetch' href='//s.w.org' /> 

Remove DNS-Prefetch from WordPress site

To remove the DNS-Prefetch link from WordPress wp_head hook is not very hard.

You can add the following code to your functions.php to remove DNS-Prefetch link from your header:

add_action( 'init', 'remove_dns_prefetch' ); 
function  remove_dns_prefetch () {      
   remove_action( 'wp_head', 'wp_resource_hints', 2, 99 ); 
} 

Generator META is usually used to point to the authors of the services used inside a website. Lately, more and more WordPress plugins authors are adding their generator METAs in source-code.

The WordPress generator meta looks like this:

<meta name="generator" content="WordPress 5.*.*" />

To remove the Generator META from WordPress you can install a free plugin like Hide My WP Ghost and activate the Hide WordPress Version option.

The plugin will also remove:

• removes the version parameters from CSS Styles loaded in the source-code
• removes the version parameters fromJS Scripts loaded in the source-code
• removes the generator Meta to WordPress
• removes the generator Meta to WPML (WordPress Multilingual Plugin)
• removes the generator Meta to Slider Revolution Meta Generator
• removes the generator Meta to Visual Composer / WPBakery Page Builder
• removes the dns-prefetch link to WP.org
• hides the Jetpack analytics trails to WordPress

You can customize the database permission if the server allows this.

For WordPress website, you can leave only the following permissions enabled:

• SELECT
• INSERT
• UPDATE
• DELETE
• ALTER (for updates)
• CREATE TABLE
• DROP TABLE
• INDEX

Follow the pictures:

1. Login to phpMyAdmin and select to see all the databases.

2. In the “Privileges” tab which list your users click the “Edit Privileges” of the user.

Then select the database: 

After that specific the privileges by checking them and then select your table as shown in the picture:

After you select your table, you can define the operations in detailed: