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News Publisher Site Audit

Improve your website’s speed, security and search performance with a free, comprehensive WordPress audit.

Roughly two-thirds of LINA newsrooms currently use WordPress—and for good reason. It offers the flexibility and speed needed to keep up with daily editorial demands.

However, most news sites accumulate a large range of plugins for analytics, social sharing, newsletters, push notifications, layout widgets, events, business listing management and more. Every plugin added to WordPress injects its own stylesheets, JavaScript files, and background database queries—which can often slow down your site —even when you’re not using them!

Over time, these plugins create hidden performance bottlenecks that slow down your web speeds (particularly on mobile), fail Google Core Web Vitals, and frustrate readers—directly hurting your pageviews, search rankings, and ad revenue.

Our Site Audit Service is a specialized diagnostic review intended to make your life easier. We thoroughly analyze your site to identify plugin bloat, detect script conflicts, and pinpoint caching issues—providing you with clear, actionable recommendations to speed up your platform without breaking the site while doing it.

Thank you for such a comprehensive report. Like – wow.

Susannah Freymark, IndyNR.com

What We Check

1. WordPress Plugins, Theme & Database Review

  • We perform a comprehensive evaluation of every active and inactive plugin on your site to identify database hogs, slow query triggers, and redundant tools.
  • We identify deprecated legacy extensions running alongside modern site builders (which cause layout conflicts and massive mobile delays).
  • We provide concrete, step-by-step recommendations for site improvements—including optimal configuration settings or ready-to-use custom code snippets.

2. Security & Vulnerability Screening

  • We scan your plugin and theme versions against security vulnerability databases to catch authentication bypasses, directory leaks, or outdated code.
  • Where relevant, we audit your firewall and security settings to ensure your website is safe.

3. Server Resources & Caching Diagnostics

  • We inspect server memory allocations to catch artificial bottlenecks that can cause script dropouts or slow page load times.
  • We evaluate page caching and script deferral rules to ensure your backend stays smooth for journalists making live edits while serving static, lightning-fast pages to readers.

4. Third-Party Scripts & SEO

  • We review third-party scripts (such as ad networks, tracking pixels, and push notifications) to ensure they aren’t blocking screen rendering or consuming API quotas.
  • We check your SEO schema configurations (e.g., NewsArticle markup) and indexing settings to ensure your SEO tools are doing what they should.

What You Get

  • Complete Performance Benchmark: A detailed breakdown mapping your site’s real-world speed metrics and Google Lighthouse / Core Web Vitals scores across mobile and desktop devices.
  • Full Plugin, Theme & Site-Health Audit: A comprehensive diagnostic teardown of your WordPress database overhead, theme dependencies, active plugins, and security perimeter.
  • Easy-to-Follow Improvement Roadmap: Clear, prioritized instructions, plugin consolidation recommendations, and ready-to-use PHP/CSS code snippets you or your web developer can implement immediately to streamline your platform.

Wow Adrian, 
That’s brilliant and exactly what I was after.

Rod Holden, Tasmanian Times

Do I need to provide anything for this?

Yes! To do this, we’ll need admin access to your WordPress site, and for best results direct access to your database. Usually this is through your hosting platform’s Plesk, cPanel or equivalent.

This service is only available to LINA members.

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