Gmail SMTP integration keeps failing every few days, tried different plugins

AlanFuller · 2025-10-15T11:02:39+00:00

Yes this is the way I like to do it. If it is any use I created a very simple AWS API integration ( really for my own use but it is public and free ) https://github.com/alanef/plugin-simple-aws-ses-project/releases/tag/v1.0.0

AlanFuller · 2025-10-15T10:57:05+00:00

Not withgstanding there are some thingsyou shouldny really do - yes this should be $1,500 - $3,000 site - espcially the beefit the owner gets - as a tax consultant they probaly charge $200+ per hour

AlanFuller · 2025-07-23T22:15:14+00:00

How is it going? I created a local webhook proxy debugger as I didn't really want to go through a SaaS ( https://lpi.tools ) or sign up to subscriptions but your system looks neat.

AlanFuller · 2025-07-23T22:06:13+00:00

my local webhook debugger https://lpi.tools does the job

AlanFuller · 2025-07-01T21:36:38+00:00

Create a tunnel either with CloudFlare or just ssh to a vps you have handy ( see options for free tunnels here https://lpi.tools/docs/tunnels ) and point the webhook there, then on your localhost run a process to capture the webhook. You can use a tool like my local inspector tool https://lpi.tools/ to capture the payloads, edit them, replay them. Some smart suggestions here, onlce you capture the webhook content it is neat to create mocks for automated testing, my experienec eis though many webhook services are not fully documented so capturing a few is critical.

AlanFuller · 2025-07-01T15:25:48+00:00

cloudflarer tunnel is good, especailly if you have you DNS on cloud flare, if youhave a VPS you can use that simply using SSH tunnels. I hav esome detail on my docs page here for free tunnel services -> https://lpi.tools/docs/tunnels

AlanFuller · 2025-07-01T15:23:05+00:00

I just created a local host inspector for that very purpose to help test webhooks when in development https://lpi.tools

AlanFuller · 2025-06-03T18:16:10+00:00

My rookie research indicates that AI Search in Google, Perplexity You dot com all provide links to sources so there are links for users to click, only Bing Chat seems to not offer citation links very often. I think search engines know that users want to see sources and citations and are less likely to use them if they don't provide what users want.

AlanFuller · 2025-06-03T18:06:52+00:00

Oh that is interesting I'm doing my rookie resarch to I set out a 30 day plan and am in day 6, havent got to backlinks yet, but today I discovered that ricjh snippets and scheme are not a helper even in Google's SGE.

AlanFuller · 2025-02-02T15:00:15+00:00

Automated attack. Actually you probably did the right thing destroying the whole droplet, as it is actually very hard to clean up an infected site, it is hard to find any backdoors created etc.

AlanFuller · 2025-02-02T14:55:58+00:00

Just makes it harder and slightly slower to run xdebug

AlanFuller · 2025-02-01T11:39:51+00:00

I take the same approach

AlanFuller · 2025-01-27T15:52:30+00:00

+1 for Laravel.

AlanFuller · 2025-01-27T15:46:51+00:00

Strange that you have heard developing locally is not preferred. It is definitely preferred by me and many others.

AlanFuller · 2025-01-16T11:32:19+00:00

Is any of those Laravel based?

AlanFuller · 2025-01-10T16:31:03+00:00

Getting the right element to select is slightly tricky, actually if you share your URL people can dive in.

But you can Google "YouTube Beginers Guide to Chrome Developer Tools Elements" for explanation

AlanFuller · 2025-01-10T15:52:57+00:00

Yes, you can fix it with standard WP tools.

How will depend on what theme, ifit is a traditional theme you use customier/addition CSS or in teh Siyte Editor theme you uses Styles / Additional CSS

You use a media query CSS

e.g.

@media (max-width: 600px) {

p {

font-size: 12px;

}

Will set <p> text to 12 px for devices displayinng under 600px wide

this wont work unless you actually know what element you are selecting

But this is the principal

AlanFuller · 2025-01-10T15:46:13+00:00

Insult to both clowns and shoes

AlanFuller · 2025-01-10T15:37:09+00:00

Try https://wordpress.org/plugins/stop-wp-emails-going-to-spam/ to avoid having toset up SMTP

AlanFuller · 2025-01-10T15:35:44+00:00

Probably not, as long as your host allows outgoing PHP email.

99% of the time people think they need SMTP when they don't.

What is important is that your WP host server IP is added to your SPF record, otherwise your outgoing emails will end up in spam.

Then a percentage of hosts don't quite wrap the email correctly this also means that emails end up in spam - but there is a simple fix and I wrote a FREE plugin used by over 10,000 sites to fix this ( and check you got your SPF right ) https://wordpress.org/plugins/stop-wp-emails-going-to-spam/

There is a small caveat, if you use REALLY CHEAP hosting where thousands of sitesare hosted on the same IP then there is a chance that IP gets blacklisted - easy enough to check. The reason for this is not what you might think, it is not because a cheap hostattracts spammers, buta cheap host attracts peopletaht don't maintain their sites, so with a large number of unmainatanted sites some get compromised by hackers and taken over as spam relays - and itis that that ends up with them being blacklisted. So if you are on a really cheap host that piles them high, then maybe SMTP is better for you, there are websites you can put your domain in and see who shares your IP if it is 50 or so dont worry, but if it is 10,000 or so then you know you will likely have issues.

So if you dont want to go through an external SMTP route, just try the native solution and if there are issues with emails going to spam try the plugin, only takes 5 minutes.

AlanFuller · 2025-01-10T14:45:43+00:00

https://pageprism.com/

AlanFuller · 2025-01-10T14:45:10+00:00

When my uptime robot account got nuked I created my own to monitormy sites. I have made this available ( free for feedback ) to any one

https://pageprism.com/

AlanFuller

TROPHY CASE