What the free audit finds
Everything in this article is public. It is what a curious visitor, a vendor sizing you up, a journalist, or a scanner run by someone less friendly can read about your website in about a minute.
The free audit runs those same checks for you, and you can try it at the end of this article. Here is what it looks at, in the order a stranger would.
What the free audit finds
By default, a WordPress site will list its users for anyone who asks. You get every author's login name, in a machine-readable list, at a fixed address. Attackers don't have to guess who the accounts are. They only have to guess the passwords.
What the free audit finds
Light gray text on white is the most common accessibility finding there is. It looks refined on a designer's screen and vanishes in sunlight, on a cheap monitor, or for anyone over fifty.
What the free audit finds
Paste a YouTube link into a page and the video appears. It also arrives with no name for a screen reader, no captions unless someone made them, and sometimes with sound that starts on its own.
What the free audit finds
When a page stays white for a second, the server usually answered quickly. Your visitor's browser already has the page. It is holding off on drawing it until a few files arrive: stylesheets, a font, a script in the wrong place.
On Monday I announced LFW on LinkedIn. By Friday the post had been seen 4,300 times, four proposals were out, and the site had changed 39 times. A short record of week one, with thanks.
Good hosting is essential, but it is only one part of running a website. Here is how to evaluate a managed host for WordPress, what the host should handle, and what still needs a web team.
Plugin updates are one small part of website management. A useful agreement also spells out who does the rest of the work, where routine work ends, and how quickly you'll hear back.
Uptime is only the first check. A useful monitor also notices changes to security policy, redirects, certificates, performance, and the pages people depend on.
