Also note ‘bumps’ only push your request further down the queue, not up in the support queue; so best to avoid doing that!

Did you check your cloudflare settings? Turn off versioning? Read their docs on query strings and caching levels?

https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/200168256-What-are-CloudFlare-s-caching-levels-

Did you check my tutorial for site optimization — did you look for it ?

I don’t work here, sorry.

That is not part of theme…. it’s inherent to how wordpress works.

Plenty of tutorials online for how to optimize your site.

For my examples of how to remove the query strings see my long winded thread in the theme docks > DIY / Tutorials > best of forums …

Basically you need to add a couple of lines to your functions.php file to remove “query strings” from your WordPress head/META data.

Also, if you’re using caching/CDN, most of the settings related to caching are in your caching/CDN setup and not the theme!

Good luck!

Best bet is to use an ad plugin like AdRotate where you can drop that into the templates where you want it for finer control.

If using a caching plugin, use the ajax option.

They don’t do that, unfortunately.

There should be new theme update very soon, this month!

Best bet is to make sure you resave permalinks, clear transients with wp-optimize, and reset any/all caching/CDN you might be using.

That usually fixes any major update gremlins.

Helps to look at the demo on themeforest before buying.

Great review system we’ve been using for almost 4 years. Love it.

You can add any commercial review plugin you wish, if you don’t like the one included with the theme.

Your site; you can do whatever the heck you want, baby! 😉

Example of post and category it’s assigned to ?

Tested with theme.

Made by the folks who make WordPress.

@Edragon
I think you got seriously lost someplace.

When you go to ThemeForest, on the downloads page, you can choose multiple options including “all files and theme” or just “the theme.”

As stated, you need to download the main “all files” zip and then unzip that on you hard drive.

In there is a folder called plugins, which clearly contains
1) revolution_slider_5
2) js_composer.zip
3) td-mobile-plugin.zip
4) td-social-booster.zip
5) td-speed-booster.zip

I assure you it is there as thousands of other people here can attest.

You don’t need to ‘update’ the Visual Composer plugin just because an update is available; as it might not be tested to work properly with theme. So VC is only updated when the entire theme package is updated, unless you buy your own VC license separately. So once you install the version included with theme, you don’t need to ‘activate’ it with WP Bakery; but I’m guessing that is not your issue if you didn’t even locate the plugins folder.

## here is the readme from the td-mobile-plugin, once you unzip that folder:

Welcome to the TagDiv Mobile Theme plugin

TagDiv Mobile Theme plugin extends our themes to offer you a better experience on mobile devices. We are in a continue research
in our work, doing our best for fitting your needs, and because the mobile environment is growing up quickly,
and also your expectations, we come to you with a mobile theme that has been tested to load fast using only the necessary components.

The mobile templates files are in the ./mobile theme directory, the TagDiv Mobile Theme plugin detecting and working with them.
From the Mobile Theme section of our well known theme panel, all important mobile theme settings can be set.

Without activating the TagDiv Mobile Theme plugin, the responsive version of our theme is used on mobile devices.

###

ALSO, from the theme docs here for install via FTP, it does tell you to download the -tf version of the zip (all files):

Install via FTP

You can install the theme in two ways: through WordPress or via FTP.

The Newspaper WordPress Theme installable file is Newspaper.zip. Please see the following sections for each method and watch our video tutorial on how to install the Newspaper Theme.

Download the Newspaper files from your ThemeForest account. Navigate to your Downloads tab on ThemeForest and find Newspaper. Click the Download button.
On your local computer extract the ZIP folder called Newspaper-tf. After extracting files you will open the folder called Newspaper-tf where you will find more folders (child-theme, documentation, licensing, plugins, psd).
Locate the Newspaper.zip in the Newspaper-tf folder (this is the theme you want to install).

##
good luck and welcome to the giant Newspaper family of users here — I’ve been lurking here since end of 2013 ! 🙂

Our site only hacked once with WordPress; back in v 1.6 I think (Al Gore’s site hacked same time ours was). We learned back then to “think security first…” and thankfully WordPress has embraced this over the past decade, where initially they were about as clueless as rest of the internet (e.g., SSL 1, 2, 3; TLS 1 … was never secure…).

Useful to specify full URL of site with https in wp-config.php

Good to do search/replace in MySQL dbase using phpMyAdmin to replace instances of http/site with https/site.

Good to go through all theme panels and make sure things like social media settings for /RSS feed or for logos are changes to https.

If using caching, you should ensure you full clear cache, and also check any code added to htaccess or functions.php which might use “http” for old site name vs “https.”

Lots of tutorials online about how to move site from http to https.

New version of plugin will be included in next theme update coming this month once it’s done.
Just because new version is available doesn’t mean you need it yet, nor is it required to use the theme.

Make sure you properly install theme. Clear all caches, or turn them off, disable any CDN setup. Remove any caching elements from your .htaccess file.

Check your htaccess file and wo-config.php file for any oddities breaking CSS loading.

Make sure you’re using modern web browser, not dead one like Safari for Windows, or IE8, etc.

If your site is mixed http/https, make sure you have that fixed to ONLY load via https and not both.

Make sure your domain resolves properly to either www or no www and not both.

Make sure WordPress works properly with default theme first.

Use a plugin (see wordpress.org); or something like Feedburner; or Mailchimp.

e.g.
https://wordpress.org/plugins/search.php?q=subscribe

TIP:
you can create multiple “pages” to test layouts, then choose the one to actually make live as static home page. Just make each test page a draft and not published.

This was how I learned to suffer through the learning curve of VC 4 years ago.

In my case, I switched to the beta TD Composer, which is simpler and had all the modules I actually use.

If you import a “demo” then you can edit the different modules in VC from the page holding those elements. Little bit of trial and error to sort of the menu for each element in the grid, but it can be done.

1) make sure you’re using legal version of theme
2) do clean install of all wordpress folders via FTP, and clean installs of ALL plugins
3) delete old theme or plugin folders no longer used; they can still be exploited
4) make sure you’re running latest version of WordPress
5) scan site with securi scanner (free)
6) use plugins like “limit login attempts” to block IPs trying to guess passwords
7) disable all XMLRPC ability
8) make sure you’re using https for your site with forced SSL login
9) make sure you disable file editing ability for user levels in wp-config.php; disable automatic updates
10) reset all passwords for users, and ensure your superuser isn’t named “admin”
11) consider disabling all password reset functions

Make sure you do these steps
https://codex.wordpress.org/Hardening_WordPress

This is useful to review:

https://codex.wordpress.org/Hardening_WordPress

Note, that I usually change the theme name; however this does not actually “hide” which theme is being used due to the fact that style classes (td_) and ajax/css folders don’t get renamed.

I have found it more useful to change the name of wp-content to assets, and change the theme folder to “mycompany” (whatever), but it won’t stop a smart person from figuring out which theme you use completely.

Using something like mod_pagespeed on server also helpful to remove comments and spaces dynamically.

But if you “know what you’re doing” also remember there are things like readme file, theme snapshot image file (png), etc.

Basically you can make it harder for folks to see what you’re using, but a smarty pants could see the code, then do search online for similar code, where nothing is obfuscated.

Doesn’t hurt to do this kind of thing, just not actually hiding it all.

Put another way, a hacker can easily figure out which theme you’re using, and which plugins (I could).

Check system status in the theme panel to make sure you have enough resources allocated to WP.

Consider using less queries on post pages.

See the docs on how to update.

You can update via WP theme panel after you download the theme zip from themeforest.

Best way is via FTP to ensure it always works; and so you can make site backup at same time.

Theme does not control WP emails; but there are plugins you can use to help manage that.

Theme does not control the main WP login page; but there are plugins you can use to customize that.

See the WordPress.org plugins pages for good choices on this topic.

(( I don’t work here. ))

a) disable all plugins except VC
b) install theme and plugins via FTP
c) clear caching if used
d) clear transients with wp-optimize
e) resave permalinks
f) make sure you have at least 256M allocated to WP in your wp-config.php file and php.ini on hosting, for busy site can be higher depending on your hosting plan; 96M minimum needed for VC *default is 40M // you can check this on the system status panel in theme settings
g) note you need to then actually setup your site using a custom home page; then select that ‘page’ as the homepage in WP settings > set static page
h) you will need to regenerate thumbs to fit pages
i) you need to go through the theme panel settings and set defaults for page/category templates, post templates

** note any custom CPTs, plugins, shortcodes from former theme likely don’t work in the new theme as ‘shortcodes’ are styles included with theme not WordPress so don’t carry over, etc.

If site not working while you learn how it works, setup dev folder and import site, then test there prior to deploy.

If you can’t get anything to work; roll your site back to former theme/plugins, and resurrect your dbase from the last backup.

All common sense stuff. Good luck!

That is just a simple hit counter and only counts main times the page was ‘loaded.’

You should always use something like the stats included with your hosting panel to see “actual traffic” to your site.

And as I stated, Google is changing how they show sites in search results.

So, good time to
a) check your pagespeed score with Google PageSpeed Insights
b) make sure your content is mobile friendly
c) consider using https vs http; your host should be able to give you free open source SSL/https cert
d) check your Google Search Console for messages about any issues/problems with your site
e) if using AMP, note the page counter does not count AMP views of pages

Not sure that helps; but all our sites traffic went down since the election in U.S., regardless of theme.

Theme doesn’t control inbound traffic to your website.