WP Engine: 2024 in Overview

2024 was a 12 months of development and innovation for WP Engine, our companions, our merchandise, and our folks. 

All year long, we launched new instruments and enhancements designed to supercharge our clients’ websites, streamline their workflows, and empower their companies to thrive. Guided by our Core Values, we launched progressive merchandise, strengthened partnerships, accomplished strategic acquisitions, and welcomed new leaders—all with the objective of serving to you construct unimaginable web sites with unmatched efficiency and help. 

As we sit up for 2025, let’s take a second to mirror on the strides we made collectively in 2024 and have a good time the progress that can set the stage for a good brighter future.

Empowering success via product and have improvements

At WP Engine, our main objective is to empower our clients with the very best platform, instruments, and workflows to make constructing on WordPress simpler, sooner, safer, and extra accessible.

To that finish, our crew launched a number of new merchandise and options all year long and delivered updates to many current choices our clients already love. Right here’s a have a look at the highlights: 

Dynamic plugin loading

Dynamic plugin loading, obtainable on all WP Engine eCommerce internet hosting plans, optimizes website efficiency by selectively loading plugins solely on pages the place they’re wanted. This focused strategy reduces pointless bloat, reducing web page measurement by greater than 30% on common and enhancing key metrics like Core Net Vitals and Time to First Byte.

Launched this month, this characteristic quickens web page load instances and has the potential to significantly enhance person experiences, enhance search engine rankings, and improve conversions. It’s simple to arrange through the WP Engine Consumer Portal and permits for customizable guidelines to take care of compatibility with important instruments. 

Dynamic plugin loading is a super answer for eCommerce retailer house owners trying to ship a sooner, extra environment friendly, and extra scalable expertise.

Web page Velocity Enhance

Launched in June, Web page Velocity Enhance is a strong addition to WP Engine’s platform that leverages NitroPack OneClick to dramatically enhance web site loading speeds and optimize Core Net Vitals. By streamlining code, optimizing photos, and prioritizing key scripts, Web page Velocity Enhance simplifies the complexities of frontend efficiency optimization, resulting in improved search engine optimization rankings, greater conversions, and higher person experiences.

It additionally allows as much as 60% sooner load instances, reduces plugin bloat, and works seamlessly throughout desktop and cell platforms. With only one click on within the WP Engine Consumer Portal, Web page Velocity Enhance eliminates the necessity for technical experience, making it an accessible answer for entrepreneurs and builders alike. 

Actual-world outcomes embody important enhancements in metrics like Largest Contentful Paint and Whole Blocking Time, making it a game-changer for creating sooner, extra partaking web sites.

Good Search AI

Good Search AI is WP Engine’s superior search answer. Launched in April, it leverages machine studying and pure language processing to ship quick, correct, and extremely related search outcomes on WordPress websites. By decoding person intent, even with imprecise or misspelled queries, it ensures guests shortly discover what they want, lowering frustration and boosting conversions.

Not like conventional search options, Good Search AI offloads search queries to an exterior server to take care of peak website efficiency, even throughout excessive visitors. Its options, together with semantic search, superior question processing, and customized filters, make search intuitive and user-friendly whereas enhancing search engine optimization and person engagement. 

With easy set up and aggressive pricing, Good Search AI has already reworked the search expertise in 2024, enhancing person experiences and driving enterprise development.

Stripe Checkout integration

Launched in March, WP Engine’s Stripe Checkout integration streamlines the checkout course of for eCommerce shops on our platform by providing a safe, frictionless, and customizable cost expertise. 

The combination optimizes conversions by lowering the steps wanted to finish a purchase order. It additionally helps greater than 135 currencies and simplifies regulatory compliance by offloading delicate cost knowledge to Stripe’s PCI DSS-validated servers. 

Options like automated forex conversion, fraud detection, and help for fashionable cost strategies like Apple Pay and Google Pay improve world accessibility and shopper confidence. 

This integration even means that you can totally customise the branding of your checkout expertise to make sure seamless procuring. It’s simple to arrange within the Consumer Portal and obtainable for all WP Engine eCommerce plans.

Efficiency Insights

Efficiency Insights, a brand new characteristic launched this 12 months in WP Engine’s Consumer Portal, offers a centralized dashboard for monitoring key frontend metrics, together with Core Net Vitals, Velocity Index, and Time to First Byte. 

These metrics assist clients assess website pace, usability, and total website efficiency, providing actionable insights to enhance person experiences and search engine rankings.

By consolidating crucial knowledge and benchmarks in a single location, Efficiency Insights eliminates the necessity to pull stories from a number of instruments, saving time and enabling centered, data-driven decision-making. The characteristic additionally features a “Efficiency Alternatives” part that highlights particular areas for enchancment with estimated advantages.

For WP Engine clients, this streamlined reporting device empowers proactive website upkeep to reinforce engagement, conversions, and total website success.

Willa: WP Engine’s reside chat help 

Along with the brand new instruments and options listed above, we additionally welcomed a brand new member to the WP Engine help crew this 12 months, and he or she’s already helped 1000’s of consumers. 

Say hiya to Willa P. Engine, Help Concierge!

This useful, AI-powered help agent is designed to shortly join you with our intensive help sources. Willa might be discovered by opening a chat within the Consumer Portal, and he or she’ll fortunately enable you discover the precise documentation or join you with certainly one of her human teammates.

Gradual question monitor

April additionally noticed the introduction of Gradual question monitor (SQM): a efficiency optimization characteristic included in all WP Engine Core and Enterprise eCommerce plans. It repeatedly logs and identifies sluggish database queries, highlighting problematic plugins, themes, or scripts that could be impacting website efficiency. 

Not like conventional monitoring instruments, SQM operates seamlessly within the background with out slowing your website and offers actionable insights via detailed stories accessible through the WP Engine dashboard. The device simplifies the method of resolving bottlenecks, serving to eCommerce retailer house owners and builders shortly handle efficiency points that might have an effect on conversions and person experiences. 

With no setup required, SQM enhances website pace and ensures clean operation, complementing WP Engine’s suite of eCommerce optimization instruments.

Edge Full Web page Cache

Edge Full Web page Cache (EPFC) is WP Engine’s superior caching answer for purchasers on our Superior Community. 

Launched in September, EFPC is designed to enhance server response instances by as much as 90%, delivering sooner, smoother person experiences by caching static HTML and leveraging Cloudflare’s CDN. By storing website content material nearer to your finish customers, EFPC reduces knowledge journey time and improves key metrics like Time to First Byte.

With a easy toggle activation within the WP Engine Consumer Portal, EFPC offers a strong, hassle-free solution to improve web site efficiency and meet person demand for quick, dependable digital experiences.

Native model 8.3

March additionally led to Native model 8.3 which boosts the expertise of connecting Native to WP Engine and simplifies website deployment between environments. 

This most up-to-date replace to Native provides streamlined controls for choosing which information or databases are moved between native and reside websites to spice up developer workflow effectivity. 

By enhancing reliability and ease of use, Native 8.3 ensures a extra seamless transition from growth to manufacturing environments, enhancing productiveness and lowering deployment complexity for WP Engine clients. 

Every of those 2024 improvements and updates underscores our continued dedication to creating WordPress simpler to make use of and extra seamless for the numerous companies, companies, and builders who’re constructing state-of-the-art digital experiences and charting the way forward for the net.

Infusing efficiency excellence via a strategic acquisition

In July, WP Engine acquired NitroPack, an all-in-one SaaS answer for enhancing website pace and efficiency metrics. Within the brief time since, NitroPack’s highly effective efficiency optimizations have significantly enhanced our already strong suite of net efficiency options. 

With NitroPack’s expertise, we’re offering clients with sooner load instances and elevated cell efficiency, serving to to reinforce their search engine optimization visibility and the experiences of their finish customers. 

This acquisition strengthens our dedication to delivering cutting-edge, customer-focused options for WordPress builders and website house owners.

Honing our voice via a model relaunch

In Might, WP Engine refreshed the appear and feel of our model’s inventive parts to raised mirror our mission, tradition, and values. 

The refreshed id is constructed on a research-driven technique that additionally recognized the 4 pillars of our enterprise success: 

• Elevated experience: We leverage our experience to assist educate and help our clients.
• Individuals-focused tradition: We empower our staff to deliver their greatest abilities and concepts to the desk.
• Relentless innovation: We repeatedly optimize our choices to construct the very best, most helpful merchandise for the builders and companies who select us.
• Unmatched efficiency: We intention to be the only greatest internet hosting supplier for WordPress websites globally. 

The brand new visible and content material requirements set forth via this model refresh create a extra cohesive and intuitive expertise throughout our suite of merchandise, reinforcing these model pillars in addition to our dedication to empowering WordPress customers with polished, fashionable options.

You will discover out extra about what went into our model refresh right here. 

Celebrating and facilitating buyer success

As all the time, we additionally took time all year long to spotlight among the WP Engine companions and clients who’re creating progressive, distinctive digital experiences on our platform.

For instance, WP Engine Company Accomplice Noble Studios selected our managed platform as the muse for Yosemite Mariposa County Tourism Bureau (YMCTB)’s digital residence. The redesigned and re-platformed website led to a notable 17.1% lower in bounce charge, in addition to will increase in total website visitors and lodging referrals. The brand new website additionally earned Noble Studios the title of Artistic Accomplice of the 12 months as a part of our inaugural Company Accomplice Awards in February!

Moreover, main digital assistant companies supplier Wing Assistant migrated to our managed internet hosting platform to raise their very own website expertise. Leveraging our superior caching, built-in CDN, and scalable infrastructure, the crew noticed a 493% improve in website visitors and a 146% improve in engagement time.

Our Crafted With Code showcase, created in partnership with The Webby Awards, additionally spotlighted among the quickest, most performant WordPress websites hosted on WP Engine’s platform this 12 months. Every acknowledged website serves for example of how WordPress might be leveraged to create digital experiences which are quick, responsive, and strong sufficient to fulfill the calls for of at this time’s web customers.

And with new performance and a refreshed search for our Company Accomplice Listing, we’re now in a position to join our Company Accomplice Program members with much more manufacturers and companies trying to tackle new initiatives. The web page helps facilitate direct lead era and enhances search engine optimization for our companions by driving visitors again to their web sites.

Driving digital adoption via schooling

Staying on the slicing fringe of digital innovation is important for designers, builders, and companies as they try to create extra lovely, performant, and user-friendly experiences 12 months after 12 months.

WP Engine helped facilitate a few of that schooling in some ways, the primary of which was via our all-virtual DE{CODE} convention, held in March. 

Serving as our fifth consecutive developer convention since 2019, DE{CODE} 2024 introduced collectively thought leaders and specialists from throughout the WordPress ecosystem to debate rising traits, instruments, and techniques for fulfillment. Matters included every thing from methods to repair a website you didn’t construct to fine-tuning your website with ACF to methods for preserving your Core Net Vitals within the inexperienced.

We additionally hosted a number of webinars all year long. These periods helped clients keep updated with our product roadmap and imaginative and prescient for the longer term, study extra about AI’s affect on website creation and optimization, discover industry-specific methods for digital success, and glean insights into the traits and challenges companies will face within the new 12 months.

Moreover, our in-depth analysis in 2024 explored lots of the matters affecting fashionable WordPress customers—from search engine optimization methods to the present state of headless WordPress adoption—and our ACF crew’s annual survey supplied high-level insights into how customers are using ACF of their workflows. This data shall be important to our future efforts as we proceed to increase and optimize our instruments and choices to greatest meet the wants of our clients.

Investing in our tradition and other people

Lastly, 2024 was a 12 months of elevated funding in our personal firm tradition, our folks, and the communities by which we reside and work. 

That is evidenced first (and most frequently) by our many Nice Place to Work recognitions all year long. We all know that when staff are given the liberty and suppleness to do their greatest work, they are going to meet and infrequently exceed expectations.

Our bi-annual hackathons additionally supplied alternatives for workers to strive new issues, construct new abilities, work with completely different teammates, and discover new concepts. In 2024, WP Engine hackathon members constructed new customized dashboards, discovered methods to optimize server efficiency, and even taught some animals to play music! (Sorta.)

Workers additionally used their time and skills to offer again to their communities in inventive methods, incomes recognition from native charities and elevating cash for the causes they care about.

We additionally took a while to introduce the world to a couple of of the folks who hold our engine buzzing alongside. Most just lately, we’ve been shining a light-weight on among the change-makers and innovators all through our ranks with the introduction of our Meet the Specialists sequence. 

We will’t wait to introduce you to much more of the people behind our success within the new 12 months!

Powering your success within the new 12 months and past

We’re brimming with concepts for brand spanking new methods to supply our clients breakthrough improvements and extra optimizations to assist drive much more success within the new 12 months!

Thanks for persevering with to belief us along with your digital future—we’re excited to proceed studying, rising, and innovating alongside among the greatest corporations and builders in WordPress!