Human Support & Managed Hosting

In WP Legends Episode 172, Zach Aufort shares his path from working at a data center in high school to seven years in the US Army as an explosive ordnance disposal technician, and now leading performance and security as Performance Services Manager at BigScoots, the Chicago managed WordPress host built around human support.

They dig into how BigScoots' Optimization Pro audits and fixes Core Web Vitals issues, how Cloudflare edge caching works alongside plugins like WP Rocket, what it takes to migrate agencies with hundreds of sites, why Zach thinks "managed hosting" has become a loose term, and why he'd add two-factor authentication to WordPress core.

Visit Us: https://seahawkmedia.com
Learn more about BigScoots: https://www.bigscoots.com/
Learn more about HostList.io: https://hostlist.io/

Timestamps:
0:00 Intro 
0:37 Guest Introduction: Zach Aufort & BigScoots
2:41 Welcome to WP Legends & Zach's Story
6:16 Role at BigScoots: Everyone Works Tickets
7:15 How Performance Services Started: Core Web Vitals & Cloudflare
11:14 What Optimization Pro Actually Does
14:40 Why Hosting Is Worth More Than Your Phone Plan
16:27 The Mediavine Partnership & Safari Ad Revenue
18:35 How AI Is Changing Hosting & Why Humans Still Answer Tickets
21:58 What Zach Finds When New Customers Migrate In
25:40 Agency Plans & Migrating Hundreds of Sites
28:46 What the Hosting Industry Gets Wrong
32:30 Page Caching: Cloudflare Edge & WP Rocket
35:36 Fun Questions: 2FA & SMTP in WordPress Core
38:58 What Bomb Disposal Taught Zach About Web Incidents
41:17 Closing Thoughts

Music Credits
Live Like Legends (Nightcore Remix) by Ruelle

#WPLegends #BigScoots #WordPress #ManagedHosting #WebPerformance #CoreWebVitals