Jetpack plugin by Wordpress/Automatic

A free version of Jetpack comes pre-installed with a Wordpress.com subscription. THIS NOT THE SAME AS THE PLUG-IN.

My usage

If you are reading this you will have noticed that this page is not hosted on a Wordpress platform.
If you are looking for a review of the Jetpack plugin you may find it interesting to note the reason that this review is here is that I do run a Wordpress website and the use of Jetpack is why I can have an informed opinion.
The review linked below does state that they are really addessing the WP.org installs as opposed to the wp.com platform which pretty much comes with a form of Jetpack pre-installed.

The fact that Jetpack is installed in such a way with wordpress.com means that the discussion on whether you should download and install it a mute one. In my opinion the use of Jetpack and its implcations revolve mainly about the editing of pages/posts and user forms. The forms are okay and are adequate for my useage. The editing of pages is quite often a "pain in the arse".

That being said, Jetpack is far more than just what I mentioned and include other features such as spam control and visitor tracking. Both of these can be handled by other means, the first is to use a platform that is not such a gigantic target as Wordpress the second is well covered by Google and their suite of tools.

Backgound

My interest here is that Wordpress.com uses Jetpack - not surprising as it is authored by Automattic.com. The specific issue that prompted my investigation into Jetpack was whether visits by you, the administrator of the website, are recorded in the statistics. Apparently they are.

The reason that this was of interest to me was that I have been updating a Wordpress.com hosted website and have been asking for feedback from those that want information uploaded to the website. However, I can't see if the pages that contain the information that was requested to be posted were visited as they are "non-Jetpack" pages. All I can see are the pages on the Wordpress site - these include the home page and the contact page.

The Jetpack Plugin

In addtion to what I see when I enter the Wordpress.com user interface the Jetpack Plugin offers more than just a "library" of "blocks" that are supposed to make life easier, the Plugin also incorporates Security and Backup.

This plugin comes pre-installed with wordpress.com and the security, in as far as spam protection, is offered through Akismet.

Adding "Jetpack pages" to the WP Home Page

I have added some pages generated in the WP interface to see if they are picked up by Google and visitors. I have returned more of the existing pages to draft and they now seemed to have been dropped from the Google index. The new pages have not been picked up be the Google robot.

have removed the page break and the reference to bwvh.uk on the Home Page as they are not of help and they may confuse visitors (and robots). The second page was accessed by a different url in WP, off the Home Page this could be the reason why the Jetpack pages were not indexed.

Spam Experiment

I will rewrite the feedback.php file I originally wrote for the Village Hall and run with that for a while to see if it gets spammed. The downside risk of this is low as I will use a dummy email and the website will still have the Hall booking form on Wordpress.

The form feedback.php - In fact I don't need to rewrite yet (apart from changing home [cancel/done] links). Also, the set_home() - which also sets the contact links - needs to be modified in script.js.

The setting of links dynamically requires that the ids and the links match in order of their declaration on the page.

My experience with the Block Editor

Looking back at my previous notes my experience was not good!

Jetpack user Statistics

For the average user this is actually better than Google Analytics.