The Worst Plugins (For Performance)

Hello there…. and welcome to a new week. We’re all going to make the most of it, right?

It just dawned on me that we’re already 2 weeks into Q4. This year has FLOWN by. But, also a reminder that we’re well into the last quarter of 2025. What we do in the next few weeks can have a lot to do with whether we can consider 2025 to be a good year or not.

So, what’s it gonna be?

Alright, let’s dive right into this weeks’ issue. I’ve got a new video spurred on by some speed bumps in the world of Buddyboss last week. We’re also going to talk about what I feel are the worst plugins to run when it comes to site performance. Then, we’re going to talk about an often overlooked aspect of email deliverability.

OK, let’s go….

The Worst Plugins For Performance

Last week, there were some major hiccups in the world of BuddyBoss. They pushed out an update with a new licensing system that brought a lot of site to their knees. Fatal errors, inaccessible admin panels…. it was bad.

Which is all the more reminder of why I try to keep people away from BuddyBoss unless they have no other option. It is an over-built, complex and resource-heavy plugin that almost always brings with it more problems.

But, when it comes to site slowdowns, BuddyBoss isn’t the only potential issue out there. So, I thought I would list out some of the worst plugins you can run when it comes to the performance of your website.

BuddyBoss

Yup, gotta list it. For all the reasons I just mentioned above. Not only that, but this big, beefy plugin comes with a theme which is notoriously difficult to modify. So, the solution to THAT is to install and use Elementor… which itself is a big honker of a plugin. Which brings me to….

Elementor

Yup. Elementor is a beast of a page builder. While you CAN build a fast, performant website with it… most people don’t because they just start building anything that looks good. And the result is a bloated website.

But also… Elementor is right at the top of the list for plugins that are more likely to break something when you update it.

So, you can imagine how much fun it is to maintain a BuddyBoss/Elementor site.

Contact Form 7

This plugin is crap and I have no idea why anybody uses it, but they do. But, it is also rather notorious for loading itself up on every single page of your site even if there are no forms there. So, it has a definite negative impact on load times.

Learndash

For something as simple as showing online courses, this sure is a big, complex plugin. It won’t necessarily slow down your website too badly on the frontend (when you have optimizations in place), but the backend is over-built IMO.

LearnDash (and most any other online course plugin) is the kind of thing you only use when you know full well you will use enough of it’s features to justify it.

See: How To Create Online Courses On WordPress Without An LMS Plug-in

WooCommerce

This tends to be my go-to ecommerce plugin, but there’s no doubt it is a resource-heavy plugin. This is one of the reasons I’m excited about the release of FluentCart. There’s not yet a migration process from Woo, but I’ll be watching for it. I know 100% it is in the pipeline.

WooCommerce can be optimized to work pretty cleanly… and I do it all the time. But, by default, it is definitely a needy plugin.

The Events Calendar

For something as fairly simple as what this plugin does, it sure is huge. I would recommend Pie Calendar as an alternative for most people’s needs.

Some Others Worth Mentioning…

Here’s some others you should be aware of…

• WP Bakery. This is one of the worst page builders. And really not good for site performance.
• Broken Link Checkers. These things scan your website and cause high CPU usage. I would only run one manually, but never let it run on automatic and constantly.
• Security Plugins. Stuff like WordFence can add a lot of blimp to your site.
• Slider Revolution (and likewise). Slider plugins are not worth using. They’re bloated. Besides, sliders are really bad for site performance anyway.

Not every plugin belongs on every site. Choose tools that match your actual needs, and always weigh performance alongside features. A fast site isn’t just nice to have—it’s essential for conversions, SEO, and a good user experience.

Concierge Client Update

New Client Center + Change To Private Videos

Last week, I mentioned the new Client Center now on the website. This will replace the “My Account” section that was there and will become the new area for you to manage your account on my site. This new portal is powered by Fluent Community which means there will be some interactivity and the ability for me to post updates throughout the week.

This week, I will be officially adding all Concierge clients to the groups. Then, you can manage your preferences from there.

Upcoming Changes To Private Videos

As most clients know, I often record private 1-on-1 videos for clients. Sometimes to show you how to do something… others just because it is a lot faster than typing.

But, one of the things that has come up many times is the ability to view an archive. As in, for clients to be able to find and view past videos I made for them.

Seeing as each video has it’s own link, they get pasted into Basecamp and there they sit. So, one either has to keep their own record of all these links, or they have to go searching our previous conversations to find it again.

This week, I will begin using a different service for these videos. It is powered by Jumpshare. While it has some other advantages for me, my main reason for switching is that this will allow me to have archives for each client. This will officially solve the problem.

Old links to videos will continue to work until around mid-December and then they will likely be inaccessible as I let that service drop. So, if there’s any videos you really would like to reference afterward, would be good to download them. If you let me know which they are, I can also ensure their safe-keeping for you.

FluentCart Now Available

The brand new FluentCart is now available in the Concierge Toolkit for any clients of Concierge to use. It is officially being released to the public this week.

WordPress News & Updates

FluentCart Launch. FluentCart was launched to VIPs last week… and the official public launch is slated for tomorrow (October 14th). Interestingly, while this product is from the same company as the other “Fluent” products, they are launching it as a separate brand. They are setting it up to be it’s own ecosystem, separate from WP Manage Ninja. Learn more about FluentCart here.

Rocket.Net Gets New Control Panel. My preferred hosting partner, Rocket.net, has launched a new, re-designed control panel. Not only does it have a new look and feel, but they’ve also improved the cloud backups system to be much faster, introduced a new global search function for sites, a task manager so you can see global task management, and a faster process for going live with a new site.

WP Engine Lawsuit Continues. In the ongoing legal battle between WP Engine and Automattic (and Matt Mullenweg), WP Engine has filed a 175-page complaint which contains what they call “shocking” information uncovered during discovery. Much of it is redacted, but the allegation is that Matt was concealing his full control over WordPress.org and the WordPress trademarks. Full story in the Repository.

Ollie Menu Designer Coming To Core. Mike McAlister has released his free Ollie Menu Designer plugin to allow users to create content-rich dropdowns and mega-menus. It was called “game-changing” and now… it is being flagged for inclusion in WordPress Core. Developers at Automattic are offering to help “shepherd it in”. I guess this is the result of Matt’s passive-aggressive reaction to the release of this plugin: “”Submit to core or it’s just another monetization of basically a core bug.” Oh, Matt.

Block Visibility Toggle Coming To WordPress 6.9. A new block visibility toggle has come to Gutenberg 21.8… and will be included in WordPress 6.9. This will allow blocks to remain in the editor, but unseen on the website. This is a feature I use within Kadence from time to time, so nice to see it coming to Core.

WooCommerce 10.3 Out October 21. WooCommerce 10.3 is slated to be released officially on October 21st. This new version will include MCP integration, native support for COGS, address auto-complete, and supposedly a better Paypal integration. Full update here.

Possible Changes To Cookie Law in EU. I was just over in England and the cookie notices on website are INTENSE. The stupid laws over in that area of the world accomplish nothing except making the internet harder to use. Well, for the EU, there’s some potential changes afoot to fix the problem. Politico has the story.

EventKoi Lite. EventKoi has been poppin’ up here and there in the headlines as a new addition to the event calendar options. Now, they’ve released a free LITE version which you can check out here. It actually looks pretty good. All I know is… I wholeheartedly recommend AGAINST using The Event Calendar unless you absolutely need the features. And most do not.

Are You Using DMARC Monitoring? You Should.

When it comes to outgoing email and deliverability, one of the key things is DMARC. It stands for “Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance“. I know, it’s a mouthful.

Basically, DMARC is a setting that goes onto your domain’s DNS settings that helps protect your domain from being used in phishing attacks. It keeps other sites from being able to send AS YOU.

And the DMARC policy that you set is an enforcement mechanism for what is supposed to happen if non-authentic emails attempt to be sent from your domain.

Now, in the subject of this piece, let’s talk about DMARC monitoring.

See, when you set your DMARC policy, you are also telling the world what to do if the system detects a potential violation of your DMARC policy. The most common entry you see out there looks like this:

“v=DMARC1; p=none;”

A lot of sites put this in there as a kind of placeholder. It satisfies the requirements of having a DMARC policy, so it turns the little red lights green in your email programs.

But, it is also a waste of a DMARC policy because it has no monitoring at all. In reality, that “p=none” is basically just a placeholder. It means there’s essentially no actual DMARC policy. It is basically telling the big guys like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo that you don’t want to be bothered with anything, don’t really care… and they can do whatever they want with your business emails.

It might not hurt your deliverability, but if/when there ARE issues with your deliverability, you won’t even know about it. Because you’d be telling the world not to bother you. Your site’s emails could be being filtered and you wouldn’t even know.

So, what you want to do is use DMARC monitoring.

With DMARC monitoring, you will set an actual DMARC policy that is more strict and then tell the world where to send reports of problems. You’ll provide an email address to which to send DMARC reports.

Now, you don’t want that email address to be your own. The emails you’ll get will be rather useless to you and… annoying. Instead, you want that email address to be a DMARC monitoring service.

By far, the easiest option is to use Cloudflare.

Cloudflare is best known for their DNS services…. and I run almost every single client through Cloudflare for DNS. One of the many services they provide is DMARC monitoring. And, it also happens to be free.

When you set up DMARC monitoring with Cloudflare, it will automate the creation of the proper DNS entry so you don’t have to worry about it.

Another solid option is Dmarc Report. I also have an account with these guys. It is a more premium service (not free), but it has a nice interface.

These DMARC monitoring services won’t actually DO anything about your delivery. They won’t handle issues. They just collect the info and present it to you. And then you’ll be able to see what services are sending emails on behalf of your domain.

And by doing that, you can use a stricter DMARC policy. Instead of p=none (which basically means no policy), I personally use p=quarantine. This tells services to quarantine an email if it doesn’t pass authorizations. This is ultimately better for deliverability than just letting it pass through.

If you want to learn more about these DMARC settings (and other aspects of email deliverability), check out:

Email Deliverability: The Simple Guide To How To Ensure Your Best Deliverability Metrics

And, of course, if you’re a client in Concierge, just get in touch and we can make sure we have DMARC monitoring set up for you through Cloudflare.

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The WP Edge is the official weekly newsletter of the Blog Marketing Academy.