GoDaddy Pro updates: December 2020

[Andy]

Here's our latest round of Pro Community updates, a quick n’ easy way to let you know what we’re working on. 

Not a GoDaddy Pro member yet? Join for free to securely manage all your clients' websites and GoDaddy products from one place.

GoDaddy Pro Hub in Open Beta (US - English)

The GoDaddy Pro Hub is an overhauled experience for web pros who build and manage sites for clients. It's the future of the GoDaddy Pro experience, and we're excited to announce that it's now available in Open Beta for US - English users.

Support is front-and-center in the Hub. Hit the persistent Contact Us button in the lower right corner of the screen at any time to message our care team. For less urgent issues, you can open a support ticket through the Settings menu.

Want to check it out? Find the opt-in on your My Products screen.

Keep in mind that the Hub is not at feature parity with the GoDaddy Pro Dashboard just yet. But don't worry - you can still get to your existing Pro Dashboard to perform all your usual tasks in Pro Sites and Pro Clients.

For reference:

• GoDaddy Pro Hub: https://hub.godaddy.com/home
• GoDaddy Pro Dashboard: https://pro.godaddy.com

 

WordPress 5.6 "Simone" released

WordPress 5.6 was released this week with a continued focus on the block editor. You have more flexibility with layouts, new block patterns to choose from, and even support for video captioning and subtitles.

It also comes with the new default Twenty Twenty-One theme, a "blank canvas for your ideas" that leans heavily on the WordPress block editor. It comes packed with beautiful pastel color schemes, and even conforms to the WCAG 2.1 at AAA level.

Find more details in the official WordPress.org announcement.

P.S. WordPress 5.5, 5.6 and 5.7 all include major updates to jQuery.

Two plugins to help you avoid issues:
 

• Update test plugin to check for potential errors
• jQuery Migrate plugin as a hotfix

We're slowly rolling out WordPress 5.6 updates across our WordPress Hosting plans this week.

Speaking of WordPress Hosting...

Improvements to wp-cron on WordPress Hosting

We've recently made some updates to our WordPress Hosting platform that will make running cronjobs far smoother and more reliable. Crons now run independently of site traffic, and they're prioritized based on resource needs.

This means that crons on WordPress Hosting are now guaranteed to run, and sites running on higher tiered plans, like WordPress Ecommerce Hosting, get higher priority.

Keep in mind that these improvements won't fix poorly written code or scripts, and cronjobs may not run exactly when scheduled. If you find a cron failing to run when scheduled, please give it at least 12 hours before contacting support.

Updates to the Go theme and CoBlocks plugin

We updated our Go theme and CoBlocks plugin late last month. Both updates include a variety of bug fixes and UX improvements. Check out our GitHub milestones for more details:

• Go theme 1.3.9
• CoBlocks 2.5.3

 

New GoDaddy Pro forums

We've launched three new GoDaddy Community forums:

• Building & managing client sites
• GoDaddy Pro discussions
• GoDaddy Reseller discussions

The GoDaddy Pro Community team is actively monitoring & participating in these new forums.

Calling all community contributors!

Do you want to be featured on GoDaddy.com, show off your expertise to potential clients, connect with other web professionals, or get exclusive access to special GoDaddy projects and programs? Join us as a GoDaddy Pro Community contributor!

Tell us a bit about yourself and what you're interested in.

Upcoming GoDaddy Pro events

Our friends at WooCommerce are hosting a virtual global meetup as part of their ongoing WooCommerce Live series.

RSVP for the event on Meetup.com

Also coming up over the next few weeks:

• Weekly socials
• Virtual meetups
• WordFest Live

Learn more and RSVP at proevents.godaddy.com

Blog posts worth checking out

Our blog team has been busy! Some highlights:

• Media Temple: The agency perspective on 2020
• How to help clients with website security
• Interviews with GoDaddy Pro members

Check out the GoDaddy Blog for more articles.

@GoDaddyPro on Twitter

Last but not least, we're continuing to share interesting & useful resources from around the web over on our Twitter handle. Check out:

• New improvements to the Gutenberg plugin
• 20+ essential WordPress plugins for business sites
• Mastering CSS Grid in 17 minutes

Follow @GoDaddyPro to stay in the loop.

That's it for this month! Happy Holidays.