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Best WordPress directory plugins of 2021

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Best Wordpress Directory Plugins of 2021

Directories are highly useful to find new businesses or providers based on particular search criteria. Not only that, but directories can also be used by a company to provide an online listing of their employees, for instance. 

There are a myriad ways to use online directories, and if your site is powered by the website builder and web hosting solution WordPress, then you can add a directory simply by installing a plugin. But which one should you use? That’s always the daunting question, so in order to make the selection process easier, we’ve looked at five of the best on offer.

1. Business Directory Plugin

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Design and monetize your listings with this plugin

Reasons to buy

+Versatile
+Full featured

Business Directory Plugin is a good all round tool. It’s easy to install and set up, and it’s highly customisable. It’s also integrated with Yoast SEO (check out our guide on the best WordPress SEO plugins), to easily associate keywords to Google searches. This plugin offers you full image support, is easily scalable, is able to be monetised and can even process recurring payments.

Not all features are available to all though: there are three plans, and as usual, the next one up the chain offers more than the one beneath it. The cheapest option is Basic, currently valued at $99.50 per year, and allows you to take payments through PayPal, enables file uploads and supports category images. Pro ($199.50 per year), lets you embed Google Maps, allows you to offer your visitors discount codes, and enables search filters. And Elite ($299.50 per year) includes support for Stripe payments, grants access to all themes, and can be installed on an unlimited number of sites.

2. Connections Business Directory

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A basic plugin to help you build a simple directory

Reasons to buy

+Free version available
+Customizable

Connections Business Directory has a great hook to get you to start using it: it’s free. At least the basic plugin is free, however it’s a good way to include a simple directory on your website.

The developers make their money by offering a range of premium templates and extension packs. These include features such as CSV import, a Form so visitors can submit their details to be added to your directory, and Custom Category or Entry order, to let visitors list your directory in a specific way rather than just alphabetical.

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These extensions can be purchased separately, or acquired through a bundle (if you’re looking to get a few, a bundle is often the cheapest option). Prices can range from $29.99 for all Extensions for one site, to $299.99 for all Extensions and Templates on an unlimited number of sites.

3. GeoDirectory

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A powerful and versatile plugin with many free features

Reasons to buy

+Many premium features are free

GeoDirectory is another free plugin which comes with a raft of features, some of which would be considered “premium” by others. These include being able to drag and drop custom fields onto your listing, adding custom sorting options, check a business’ opening hours, and even search by proximity. It can also be integrated with Ninja Forms to support unlimited contact forms. You could easily design a complex and thorough directory without spending a penny.

There are of course more advanced features which come at a price. These include Location Manager (to turn your local directory into a more global one), Pricing Manager (to help you monetise your directory), and GD reCAPTCHA (to filter out spam).

You can buy each add-on individually or grab yourself a membership which gives you access to all add-ons and templates for a discounted price. This would cost you $199 per year (other more expensive options are $129 half-yearly, or $99 quarterly), and there’s also a one-off Lifetime price of $995.

4. Advanced Classifieds & Directory Pro

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Design a unique and intricate directory with this versatile plugin

Reasons to buy

+Many free features

Advanced Classifieds & Directory Pro is a pretty powerful plugin, with enough power to let you create a directory (or an army of directories), on any subject you’d care to imagine. Best of all, this plugin offers many of its features for free, such as Custom Fields, Frontend Listing Submission, Featured Listings, and Email Templates to name but a few. You can create pretty intricate custom directories with this plugin with little effort.

If you want to make money out of your directory, then you’ll need to pay for the privilege. Unlike other similar plugins, there’s only one plan, which simplifies everything really: a yearly subscription of $95.88 grants you access to all premium features which include PayPal and Stripe payment gateways, WooCommerce integration, and CSV import and export features.

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5. Directories Pro

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A plugin with a slew of useful and interesting features

Reasons to buy

+Very feature rich
+Affordable

Directories Pro is an elegant plugin, and although it doesn’t offer a free option, it’s pretty affordable next to many of its competitors. Its use of caching makes it very responsive, both on desktop and mobile platforms. It offers advanced search and filter capabilities, drag and drop editing, map integration, CVS import and export, and also paid listings (although there’s a catch to that one, see below).

One feature we quite liked was the ability to clone a directory to build multiple directories quickly and easily based on the original. 

The price of the plugin depends on whether you’ll be charging visitors for access to the directory or not. For free access, it’s $39 per year for a single site. Paid for access bumps the price up to $195.

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New WordPress.com Themes for March 2024 – WordPress.com News

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New WordPress.com Themes for March 2024 – WordPress.com News

Five of our favorite new themes.

The WordPress.com team is always working on new design ideas to bring your website to life. Check out the latest themes in our library, including great options for small businesses, sports fan, nostalgic bloggers, and more.


Feelin’ Good is a vibrant (to say the least!) blog theme with a bold vaporwave aesthetic. Its nostalgic atmosphere pays homage to the daring, over-the-top visual art and advertisements of the ’80s and early ’90s. We’ve combined a lot of elements that shouldn’t work together, but do. If you’re looking for a dynamic, attention-grabbing, eye-popping visual feast of a theme, try Feelin’ Good.

Click here to view a demo of this theme.


1711610762 938 New WordPresscom Themes for March 2024 – WordPresscom News

Low Fi is a simple blog theme featuring a narrow column layout that’s optimized for seamless browsing on mobile devices. With six style variations, you’re sure to find a palette you’re drawn to. Taking inspiration from the lo-fi beats music scene, the theme’s design cues, such as the square header image, offer a nod to album artwork.

The overall aesthetic is deliberately understated, with each element—from the muted color schemes to the textured background—crafted to evoke a sense of nostalgia and warmth.

Click here to view a demo of this theme.

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1711610763 567 New WordPresscom Themes for March 2024 – WordPresscom News

Cakely is the ultimate WordPress theme designed specifically for passionate bakers, cake enthusiasts, and dessert lovers. Tailored for small businesses aiming to shine in the world of sweets, Cakely effortlessly combines style and functionality to showcase mouthwatering creations. Its vibrant pink color scheme exudes joy while maintaining a classy, clean layout with easy navigation. This theme ultimately strikes the perfect balance between professionalism and playfulness, making it an ideal choice for showcasing your delicious masterpieces.

Click here to view a demo of this theme.


New WordPresscom Themes for March 2024 – WordPresscom News

Treehouse is a carefree, fun, and friendly theme ideal for Woo stores selling children’s products. With its unlimited customization options, Treehouse enables you to set up an online shop with just a few clicks. Utilizing a soft color palette, playful design details, and simplified layouts, your site will attract a wide range of customers, from young parents to over-the-moon grandparents. This theme is fully responsive and cross-browser compatible.

Click here to view a demo of this theme.


New WordPresscom Themes for March 2024 – WordPresscom News

Major League Baseball’s 2024 season kicks off on Thursday, March 28. What better way to show your home team the love it deserves than with a baseball-themed fan site! With a somewhat old-school layout, this theme evokes some of the classic sports sites of the ’90s, back before fantasy leagues took over. The header and accent colors are customizable, ensuring that your favorite crew is properly saluted.

Click here to view a demo of this theme.


To install any of the above themes, click the name of the theme you like, which brings you right to the installation page. Then click the “Activate this design” button. You can also click “Open live demo,” which brings up a clickable, scrollable version of the theme for you to preview.

Premium themes are available to use at no extra charge for customers on the Explorer plan or above. Partner themes are third-party products that can be purchased for $79/year each.

You can explore all of our themes by navigating to the “Themes” page, which is found under “Appearance” in the left-side menu of your WordPress.com dashboard. Or you can click below:

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How to Get Started: Investigating Payment Gateways Online

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How to Get Started: Investigating Payment Gateways Online

When investigating a website, app, or online shop, one of the key questions you may need to answer is ‘How are they making money?’ 

Investigating the financial transactions of an organisation can reveal details about its connections and funding. Furthermore, if the website or app is engaged in illicit transactions, tracing the payment gateway can help achieve accountability by identifying what sites they are using to earn money.   Bellingcat has looked into the payment processors in previous investigations on far-right merchandise, Britain’s far-right influencers, and non-consensual deepfake pornography.

Credit: Nicolas Guyonnet / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect

Payment gateways are a technology that takes a customer’s payment information, checks it with their financial institution, verifies that the transaction is legitimate, and then completes the transaction. As explained by Forbes, online stores need a payment gateway to be able to facilitate payments. Companies including PayPal, Stripe, and Square are commonly used as a payment gateway for online purchases.

Most mainstream payment gateways (like Stripe and PayPal) prohibit their services from being used in illegal transactions including the sale of illegal drugs, the promotion of hate or racial intolerance, and non-consensual adult content. Finding evidence that someone is violating the Terms of Services of these companies – and how they are doing so- can lead to the closure of loopholes and accounts. It can also provide additional information about an organisation’s revenue streams. 

It is nearly impossible to conduct online transactions without a payment gateway. So it should be possible to find the payment gateway of an organisation earning money, even if it is not obvious at first. One resource that is extremely useful is Chrome’s built- in developer tools (other browsers also have similar tools). Below we’ll provide an overview of the tools to use and questions to ask when scrutinising payment systems. 

How are they Taking Payment?

For online transactions, you’ll typically see websites accept traditional forms of payment including credit cards, debit cards and, more recently, cryptocurrency. Since cryptocurrency is not subject to the same regulations as traditional financial systems, cryptocurrency is often used to process payments for illegal services. Since this does not need to be ‘hidden’, websites will usually disclose which currency they accept and how to transfer funds into a crypto wallet. There are other ways you can track funding through cryptocurrency, as discussed in this guide.

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If none of the above apply?  Other sites that use a payment gateway will accept money directly via credit card payment,  bank transfer, or through peer-to-peer payment apps (i.e., PayPal, Cash App, Zelle). If this is the case, you should be able to identify the payment gateway being used. In the case of the peer-to-peer apps, these services may be used by businesses and not just individuals’ transactions. They also require a bank account or credit card to use them. It is helpful to view transaction options on both the mobile app and web browser, in case the options differ.  It is also worth checking the currency that payments are being taken in – if it is a US website taking payment in a foreign currency, that can also provide clues. Further, if a website is using different payment gateways depending on the currency, this can lead to additional leads in your investigation. Payment options may also change depending on what IP address you are using. In other words, setting your IP address in the UK and then changing it to the US may result in different payment gateway options.

Where are they Soliciting for Payment?

Organisations may solicit for payment via a website or a messaging app like Telegram. It is important to investigate all avenues where  payment is being requested as each method may provide different clues for your investigation. For example, for some of the AI deep fake services we investigated here we found that companies would accept different payment methods depending on how you tried to pay – via their website, via a web browser or via Telegram. Sellers may want to direct their users away from their website to more private forums such as Telegram to facilitate transactions and avoid detection.

Is the Organisation Trying to Hide How Payment is Taken?

For some sellers, using a mainstream payment gateway may  violate the terms of service of that company. To be able to use their services, these sellers may  try to hide the nature of their goods from the payment gateway company. 

A Walk Through Example

Some sites may not show their payment options without signing up first. 

This was the case with the Nudify.VIP site which offers non-consensual AI Deep Fake pornography.  

Initially, the website states that their services are free. 

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“With our service you can undress any person in a photo absolutely FREE!” 

However, this is misdirection, as you are then prompted to log in or sign up. Only once you create an account do you discover that you need to pay to access the service and how much it costs.

After creating an account, we were presented with two options to pay, by card or crypto. 

You are then presented with an option to pay via crypto or via credit card, but it does not yet say what cards they accept or what payment gateway they use. 

Clicking through to ‘Go To Payment’ gives us a new screen that lets the user pay via credit card (ie MasterCard, Visa), a US Bank account (ie Wells Fargo, USAA), or through Cash App. 

There is no indication of the payment gateway they are using, but if we look at the URL on the checkout page, we can see that it no longer says that we are on a Nudify.VIP domain. This is a clue that users are being directed to the checkout page through another website. This method is used to hide the true source of purchases from payment gateway providers. There’s another clue  that the domain has changed- in the fine print at the bottom of the checkout page. Via the Checkout Page using either Cash App or credit card options, it discloses:

“By providing your card information, you allow aiphotos.art to charge your card for future payments in accordance with their terms.”

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This is another clue that the payment gateway does not know this belongs to an AI Deep fake service Nudify.VIP.

Three checkout options for Nudify.VIP: credit card, US bank account, and Cash App.

Use Browser Developer Tools to Investigate Further

All modern browsers have some form of built-in developer tools. You can search online for your specific browser (e.g. Firefox, Chrome, Safari). If you are in Chrome, you can right-click anywhere on the screen to get a menu and an option to ‘Inspect.’ You can also use keyboard shortcuts which can vary between MacOS or Windows. For Windows, you can click CTRL + SHIFT + I and on MacOS you can click Option + Command + I on your keyboard. Any of these actions will open the developer tools which allows you to  view the code of a webpage (such as HTML, CSS, and Javascript). This should appear on the right-hand side of your screen. While developer tools are designed to check for bugs or errors in a website, you can use them in your investigation.

There should be a list of tabbed options for you to view on the top menu bar. Clicking on ‘Sources’ shows you all the resources that the website is using. 

This is a good place to start to look for any clues about what piece of code is being used in the checkout process.  In the example below, one of the listed sources on the page is titled ‘js.stripe.com.’



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15 WordPress Pro Developers You Should Follow in 2024 – WordPress.com News

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15 WordPress Pro Developers You Should Follow in 2024 – WordPress.com News

The WordPress community can sometimes seem like a vast ocean of people, information, and resources. Here are 15 folks to follow to stay on top of everything you need to know.

WordPress is so powerful and versatile that the WP community can sometimes seem like a vast ocean of people, information, and resources. In today’s Build and Beyond video, Jamie Marsland shares 15 of the most influential developers he follows to keep on top of new features, learn cool new tips, and, ultimately, get the most out of WordPress. 

Of course, we couldn’t feature all the great people in this space, so be sure to comment below with your favorite WordPress-related follows.  

Ready to build on WordPress.com? Start a free trial today:

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Here are the folks mentioned, as well as where to find them on the web: 

Nick Diego

nickdiego.com
twitter.com/nickmdiego

Sarah Norris

twitter.com/mikachan_

Brian Coords

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youtube.com/@BrianCoords
twitter.com/briancoords

Carolina Nymark

fullsiteediting.com
twitter.com/carolinapoena

James Kemp

jameskemp.blog
twitter.com/jamesckemp

Anne Bovelett

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annebovelett.de/en
twitter.com/bovelett

Justin Tadlock

justintadlock.com
twitter.com/justintadlock

Ryan Welcher

ryanwelcher.com
youtube.com/@ryanwelchercodes

Aki Hamano

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twitter.com/tetsuaki_hamano

Aurooba Ahmed

twitter.com/aurooba
youtube.com/@AuroobaMakes

Eric Karkovack

twitter.com/karks88
twitter.com/speckyboy

Keith Devon  and Mark Wilkinson

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youtube.com/@HighriseDigital

Joost de Valk

joost.blog
twitter.com/jdevalk

Elliot Richmond

youtube.com/@elliottrichmondwp

Rich Tabor

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rich.blog
twitter.com/richard_tabor

Jessica Lyschik

twitter.com/jessicalyschik
youtube.com/@jessicalyschik


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