After an eventful weekend at the WordCamp Retreat in Soltau, we are a little late with the latest WP news for you: Tracking is also GDPR-compliant, the WordPress app does not cope with Gutenberg-content and we show you technical GDPR-measures for your WordPress-site. We also have our experience report from the #WCRetreat Soltau. 

WordCamp Retreat - The best WordCamp so far! 

As sponsors of the first WordCamp Retreat, we drove to Soltau on Friday (at 4am!) full of expectations. Our short conclusion: The retreat format blew us away! The lectures were super informative, the hotel great, the weather bombastic and the mood accordingly exuberant. The icing on the cake for us were the leisure activities together, which rounded off the whole event. As we were so enthusiastic about the retreat format, we have summarised our impressions and highlights of the weekend for you 🙂

WordPress Analytics without tracking cookie - Statify in focus

With the upcoming EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the E-Privacy Regulation, the WP community has to rethink properly. Not only the numerous plugins, but also WordPress itself are not yet sufficiently prepared for this step. Since there is a great deal of uncertainty among most site operators, especially with regard to tracking, Denis Sandmann shows you why Google Analytics is problematic and to what extent Statify is a good alternative.

WordPress

GDPRsecure with the "WP GDPR Tools"-plugin
As the operator of a WP-site you have to consider a few things before the GDPR becomes effective on 25. Mai . Because if your site requests, analyzes or stores personal data - which is probably the case - you have to ensure a legally secure processing. The new plugin "WP GDPR Tools" from Shapepress helps you to implement the requirements of GDPR . The plugin was checked for German and Austrian law and developed together with lawyers.

GDPR & WordPress: These technical measures you should implement
A GDPR-plugin can support you in many areas to prepare your WordPress-site for the GDPR. However, there are some settings and adjustments that you can easily implement yourself, such as choosing GDPR-secure plugins. We show you an overview of the technical measures that we consider useful against the background of GDPR and have already implemented.

The WordPress app and Gutenberg don't get along (yet)
To test a typical scenario of WordPress users, Jeff Chandler from WP Tavern created and published a post with the Gutenberg editor. He then tried to open the post with the iOS app on his phone, for example to correct a typo. Why he is far from satisfied with the result of his test, you can read in his short report.

The Orga Team on the #WCRetreat
Lead organizer Sven Wagener takes stock of the very first WordCamp in the retreat format in the Presswerk podcast. Among other things, Sven talks a bit about the preparations and reveals which hurdles the organizing team had to overcome on the long way to the event weekend. At this point, we would like to say a huge thank you for the great weekend 🙂 .

Business

Data protection in times of GDPR - Q&A
At the WordCamp Retreat in Soltau, our data protection officer Virginia spontaneously stepped in and gave a Q&A session with Udo Meisen on the unloved but important topic "GDPR". Even if you have already dealt with GDPR , there is certainly one or two takeaways for you. You can watch the session online on WordPress TV.

Performance

What does the perfect meta description look like?
The colleagues of the popular SEO plugin Yoast have tested four different meta descriptions (long + keyword once, long + keyword several times, short meta description, no meta description). The result of the experiment: What Google actually uses as a meta description, you have less control over than you thought.