New Host
Over the weekend we finally moved to a new host, this has been something we’ve needed to do for a long time (there has been a lot of downtime during peak hours and the site has been sluggish most of the time). Hopefully you’re finding the site is significant faster now. First of all a big thanks to the people at WP Engine for making the move really smooth, they have also helped fixed a few on going issues with the site (e.g you can now leave comments on the bank accounts that allow credit card funding page). Their support has been fantastic so far. It also has and will mean I can speed more time focusing on quality content than site issues.
What Do You Want Improved
I think the key reason this site has grown more popular is the fact that we try our best to listen to reader feedback as often as possible and improve the site (and content) based on what readers want. If there is something on this site that drives you up the wall, let me know in the comments and I’ll see if we can’t fix the site.
Issues We Know Need Resolving
I’d like to keep track of changes that the site needs to make and when the changes are made to help keep myself accountable. Anything that I see listed as a comment, I’ll add it to this list once it’s on our “to do list” (I won’t be adding every single change here immediately as some people may disagree with your recommendations).
- Site redesign. This has been on the to do list for a long time and is probably the most requested change we’ve ever had for the site. One of the nice things about about WP Engine is they allow staging, so we’ll be able to fix any issues (and get your feedback) on a new site design before it goes live. I already have a designer in mind, but if you have any recommendations or things you want included let us know in the comments.
- Improve the mobile experience. Â This is part of the site redesign but we will try and improve the advertisements on mobile as an interim measure they have been an issue.
List popular categories in the sidebar. This will allow people to view the most recent articles on things such as credit cards, bank accounts, etc etc.
Create a reference page linking important articles. This would include links to all of the pages that are kept up to date and don’t change over time (e.g X things to know about Barclaycard credit cards or credit card issuers that do a hard pull for credit limit increases). This will then be linked at the very top of the site, replacing ‘How I Make Money’ as that is no longer used.Open links in a new tab. I personally hate when sites open new links in a new tab (although Chuck strongly disagrees with me), but when I asked on Twitter people overwhelming wanted this changed, so we’ll change it (and soon, although there is still time to vote).- Improve comments system. There are a few issues with our current comment system, this is what we’d like to improve:
Make sure subscribing to comments works correctly.- Ability to sort/view comments (e.g new comments only)
Proof read content more frequently. I know this drives people crazy, we’ll make more of an attempt to proof read content in the future. No promises we will be any good at all though.Slow links on Twitter. For whatever reason when people have been clicking the links to new posts on Twitter, it has taken ages for the links to actually resolve. I believe this issue should now be fixed. Let me know if you’re having problems with this still.Completed.
Support The Site
Our new host is about three times more expensive than what we are previously paying. We will also need to spend some money on getting a new site designed & developed. We still run at a healthy profit, but if you’d like to say thank you for the content provided I can recommend one of three things:
- Shop using our eBay link. We’ll receive a commission whenever you make a purchase, we’ll look at adding a small banner to the site once the new site redesign is complete. Here is our link.
- Tell other people about the site. The biggest thank you you can give us is a recommendation, whether it be a personal recommendation, a link on social media or just sharing our links when relevant on different forums and social media platforms.
- Tell us about deals we miss. It’s difficult to find every deal out there, so if you see a deal that you think would fit on the site (e.g credit card bonus, bank account bonus or just a general deal). Then contact us (either via the contact us form or using [email protected]) and let us know!
@Jeff, glad to hear it’s working again.
Will, not receiving any e-mail notifications for comments, even those I was subscribed to before the host move. Is anyone?
Also, for some reason I’m not getting all twitter notifications for new posts.. only some. Strange.
Thanks for your answers.
We’ve turned off e-mail notifications at the moment, I’ll make a post about it shortly. Not sure about the Twitter issue..
The new subscription function doesn’t seem to be working for me. I haven’t been receiving e-mails for any new posts.
What subscribe function are you talking about? Subscribing to comments should work, but it’s for new comments not new posts.
I meant comments. But it seems to only not work when you subscribe without commenting. I verified there were new comments on the article I subscribed to without commenting (no-email). But it works when you leave a comment and subscribe at the same time. Maybe it’s just me.
Never mind, seems to be working now. Thanks Will!
“Open links in a new tab. I personally hate when sites open new links in a new tab…but when I asked on Twitter people overwhelming wanted this changed…”
Goes to show that most people on Twitter don’t know how to use a computer and a mouse. Having to open new links in a new tab should not be the default. If readers want new tabs, just click the mouse wheel as opposed to the left button (or right click and select Open in New Tab). Defaulting to opening a new tab will remove the option to easily open links in the same browser tab.
Is anyone else having issues with the comment section E-Mail notifications?
1) When I subscribe to a post, I do NOT get any confirmation that I have subscribed. I thought this is running in WP, so that option should be standard. E-Mail should come through.
2) When someone comments, I get an E-Mail but its all in plain text. Why is that? Really annoying to get all Doc comment E-Mails in plain txt with tons of HTML junk. I also can not witch the E-Mail to HTML.
3) Subscription manager is broken. I click on it and I get directed to a page with nothing on it. Meaning, its the Doc site but has nothing to manage. Here is a cut/paste.
—–
You have requested to manage your subscriptions to the articles on Doctor Of Credit. Follow this link to access your personal page:
—–
Yup. Thats it. Is there supposed to be a link?
Thank you Doc.
Just to clarify with the Subscription Manager, towards the bottom of the comment E-Mail, there is a hyperlink to manage the subscriptions. I click on that and was expecting to see a list of posts I can unsubscribe from.
Not sure what the issue is, but maybe the host switch is causing problems?
1. You should now be asked to confirm your e-mail and receive a confirmation. Let me know if this is/isn’t working.
2. I’ve allowed the plugin to now send HTML enabled e-mails, again let me know if it is/isn’t working.
3. Will try and work out why the management page isn’t working.
Ok, so it looks like #3 is an issue with the theme we are using. I’m seeing if there is a temp fix at the moment, otherwise it will be dealt with in the new design.
Thanks Doc for looking into all the issues. Will get back to you as I try things out, but looks like someone tried the first 2 and it works. Will keep you posted, but its good to see youre all over that. YOU DA MAN!
1 and 2 aren’t working. Didn’t try 3.
Still no HTML in e-mails and no confirmation?
As of 16 hours ago (the last email I received from DoC), still no HTML. I don’t know about confirmation.
When I receive the email to confirm that I want to receive comments the same link appears 4 times in a row but only 1 of them is a hyperlink (the other 3 are text). When I click on that link I receive the below message. I then receive another email to manage my subscriptions. All of the links I clicked on appear to be there but I am not receiving emails for any of the new comments appearing.
You have requested to manage your subscriptions to the articles on Doctor Of Credit. Follow this link to access your personal page:
“>
I’ve turned off the subscribe to comments plugin in for now, we’ve had a lot of issues with it recently and now the new host is complaining about the volume of e-mails being sent out. Currently looking for a better solution if anybody knows of one.
How about an option to only receive email notifications for REPLIES to your comment, instead of all follow up comments.
Thank you for switching hosts! The speed improvement is much appreciated.
Yeah, I’ve been wondering about this option too. Don’t remember seeing the option elsewhere.
Not sure if this is possible, I’ll have a look at the different subscribe to comments options.
How about mentioning how much commission (% or $) you get from each link posted. We know it’s why this site exists so let us see which links are likely getting posted because it benefits you more than us. And don’t deny that’s why some are posted….
I think that’s being pretty unfair Jack, we’re pretty honest when we get paid and we’ve also made the choice not to promote credit card/bank account links because the amount they pay could skew our reviews, readers also believe a bias exist and these companies prohibit certain things we can talk about. We also go out of our way to let merchants pass on the savings to readers instead of paying us (see: Northpointe and another up coming promotion). If you have a specific merchant you’d like to know about and I’m allowed to answer (it’s often prohibited by the terms we sign up to), then I’ll happily answer.
@Jack.
So, you want Dr of Credit to disclose how much money he makes? Ok. Then why don’t you publicly post your most recent paystubs and W2s? Once you do that, then you can open your mouth about someone’s personal finances.
Tags or categories for posts!
We have categories for posts (and sometimes use tags), we just don’t make them easily accessible. We’ll do this in the new design with a breadcrumb at the top of each post, I’ll also link to the more popular categories in the sidebar shortly.
It would be nice to receive email notifications for deals regarding certain websites/vendors. e.g. I spend a considerable amount on eBay and missed out on a lot of the eBay gift card sales last year since a lot of those were time sensitive.
You can follow us on Twitter for instant alerts to all posts. Maybe we should have the option of instant email alert. (You can also do it yourself on ifttt.com by sending your Twitter to your inbox.)
You can set up these types of customized alerts by using IFTTT, maybe I’ll try to work out some way of setting up an automated system for this but at the moment I think IFTTT is a perfect solution for this request.
How about a posting on the banks with the best savings rates you can receive without any of the hassles (DD, debit use, credit use, etc)?
That’s included in this post as well: https://www.doctorofcredit.com/high-interest-savings-to-get/
For bank sign up bonuses on https://www.doctorofcredit.com/current-bank-sign-bonuses/, it would be good if you can indicate in the table whether direct deposit includes transfers from other bank accounts and when we can close the bank account without penalty. Thanks.
We already include when it can be closed without penalty, that’s the early account termination fee. Often sometimes direct deposit transfers work sometimes, but not all the time. It also changes frequently but you can click the sum required to trigger the direct deposit bonus and it’ll take you to all the current data points. I think that’s better than saying yes an outside transfer will definitely work or won’t work.