At WP Engine, we’re committed to making your WordPress experience great. One way we do that is by continually improving our platform to better meet your business needs. In 2015, we made several improvements to our platform to provide you a seamless WordPress hosting experience. Here’s a sampling of some of the changes made in 2015.

1. We removed bot traffic from overage calculations

overages-650x270

In October, we made updates to our overage policy so you are no longer charged for overages based on bot traffic.

To learn more about bot traffic, check out our guide to understanding the bot invasion.

2. We made it easier to secure your site with SSL

https

Not only is it imperative to have an SSL certificate to help your site in search rankings, but it also builds trust in those visiting your site. Setting up SSL with your WordPress site is now easier than ever and can be done through your user portal. In addition, SSL is now available to customers on our Personal plan.

To learn more, download our free SSL white paper.

3. GeoIP helps you go global

geoip-for-blog.4-1024x600At the start of 2015, we launched WP Engine GeoIP. This powerful technology allows you to personalize and serve dynamic web content to visitors based on their location, enabling you to only show what’s relevant in a visitor’s specific geography.

For more on GeoIP, check out our free ebook.

4. We gave the user portal a facelift

Based on customer feedback, we made a few changes to the WP Engine user portal, including a refined look, simplified features, and improved install navigation.

5. WP Engine Search entered Alpha stage

This year we launched the Alpha project for WP Engine Search. Powered by Elasticsearch, this technology offers a speedy and accurate search experience, along with a full text search engine, among other benefits.

6. Site backups got better

We made significant improvements to how site backups work, including adding strong encryption, an uploads directory, and more.

7. Migrate your site to our platform in minutes 

Migrating your WordPress site to WP Engine is now even easier thanks to the WP Engine Automated Migration plugin. This solution eliminates the time and complexity often required to migrate a WordPress site from one platform to another.

8. Updating WordPress is a breeze with One-Click WordPress Core Upgrades

With One-Click WordPress Core Upgrades, you can easily update your WordPress site to the latest version of WordPress with the click of a button rather than having to contact support about it, or waiting for WP Engine to upgrade your site for you. You can also see which version of WordPress your site is running, as well as defer the upgrade to the next version if you’d like.

9. PHP 7 testing is available in Mercury Vagrant

You can now test PHP 7 in Mercury Vagrant (HGV) 1.5 to compare its speed against HHVM. The latest version of HGV also includes a toggle feature that allows you to test and compare PHP 7, PHP 5, and HHVM. (See here for a speed comparison we did between the three.)

10. Upgrade Deferral is an option with WordPress Core Upgrades

You can now request to defer a WordPress Core Upgrade for up to 60 days, rather than having your site update automatically. This is beneficial should you need more time to prepare your site prior to upgrading the WordPress core.

What changes would you like to see take place in 2016? Leave a comment with your top feature requests in the section below.

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful 2016!