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WordPress Website Analysis: Before & After ImageEngine

WordPress is by far the world’s most popular CMS. Not only does it dominate the CMS market with a 64% market share, but it also powers 39.6% of all websites. It has taken the internet by storm by democratizing the web for all. Now, anyone can build, manage, and host a successful website without needing a college degree or coding expertise.

However, while WordPress is great at managing many technical aspects, it still can’t do everything for you. Built mostly on PHP, there are often concerns regarding how performant WordPress is. And, with performance impacting everything from bounce rates to SEO rankings to conversions, it’s something that should be on your radar too.

If you don’t know it yet, images are one of the main causes of slow-loading websites. In recent years, WordPress has stepped up its efforts to try and help users with image optimization out-of-the-box.

Still, as we’ll show, it’s not a total solution, and there is still plenty you can do to deliver better experiences on your WordPress website through image optimization.

What is WordPress Image Optimization? Why is it Important?

Simply put, image optimization is anything you do to make images load faster on your website pages. Almost all websites that use images can benefit from some form of image optimization, even those using WordPress.

Why?

Well, performance is a hugely significant factor when it comes to the competitiveness of your website today.

Google has also made performance an increasingly important factor when it comes to SEO rankings. In fact, performance is a direct ranking signal that carries significant weight.

Google’s Page Experience Update that went live in 2021 has been the biggest move in that direction yet. Soon, Google might even use visual indicators in SERP results to distinguish high-performing websites from the rest.

In Google’s own words, “These signals measure how users perceive the experience of interacting with a web page and contribute to our ongoing work to ensure people get the most helpful and enjoyable experiences from the web.”

So, Why Should We Target Images For Performance Optimization?

According to Google, images are the largest contributor to page weight. Google has also singled out image optimization specifically as the factor with the most untapped potential for performance optimization.

This problem isn’t going away soon. According to data by the HTTP Archive, there are roughly 967.5 KB bytes of image data on desktop web pages and 866.3 KB of image data on mobile pages. This is an increase of 16.1% and 38.8%, respectively, over the last five years.

Thanks to popular e-commerce tools like Woocommerce, it’s estimated that up to 28% of all online sales happen on WordPress websites.

And don’t forget, images are both a key part of conveying information to the user and integral to the design of your website. If they take significantly longer to load than your text, for example, it will negatively impact the user experience in a variety of ways.

In summary, optimized images help your WordPress website by:

Improving user satisfaction.
Improving various traffic metrics, like bounce rates, time-on-page, etc.
Boosting your SEO rankings.
Contributing to higher conversions (and sales).

How Does Image Optimization in WordPress Work?

WordPress is so popular because it’s a CMS (content management system) that allows anyone to build, design, and manage a website without any coding or advanced technical experience. Advanced features can be installed with just a few clicks, thanks to plugins, and you rarely have to touch the code behind your website unless you want to make some unique modifications.

In short, using a CMS like WordPress shields you from many of the day-to-day technicalities of running a website.

WordPress Image Optimization: What It Can Do

As we mentioned, one of the main reasons WordPress is so popular is because it takes care of many of the technical aspects of running a website. With that in mind, many think that WordPress should also automatically take care of image optimization without them having to get involved at all.

Unfortunately, that’s not really the case.

True, WordPress does offer some built-in image optimization. Whenever you upload an image to WordPress, it currently compresses the quality to about 82% of the original (since v4.5).

In v4.4, WordPress also introduced responsive image syntax using the srcset attribute. This creates four breakpoints for each image you upload according to the default WordPress image sizes:

150px square for thumbnails
300px width for medium images
768px max-width for medium_large images
1024px max-width for large images.

Here you can see an example of the actual responsive syntax code generated by WordPress:

<img loading="lazy" src="https://bleedingcosmos.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/33-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-9" width="610" height="406" srcset="https://bleedingcosmos.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/33-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://bleedingcosmos.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/33-300x200.jpg 300w, https://bleedingcosmos.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/33-768x512.jpg 768w, https://bleedingcosmos.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/33-1536x1024.jpg 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 610px) 100vw, 610px">

Depending on the screen size of the device from which a user visits your webpage, WordPress will let the browser pick the most appropriately sized image. For example, the smallest version for mobile displays or the largest for 4K Retina screens, like those of a Mac.

While this may seem impressive, it’s only a fraction of what can be achieved using a proper image optimization solution, as we’ll show later.

Lastly, WordPress implemented HTML native default lazy loading for all images starting with version 5.5.

So, in short, WordPress offers the following image optimization capabilities baked-in:

Quality compression (limited)
Responsive syntax (up to 4 breakpoints)
Lazy loading

WordPress Image Optimization: What it Cannot Do

There are other issues many have with both the implementation of image compression and responsive syntax as it’s used by WordPress. This leads to some users even purposefully deactivating WordPress’ built-in image optimization so they can fully take control of it themselves.

Here are some of the reasons why:

WordPress uses a very basic form of quality compression. It does not use advanced technologies like AI and machine learning algorithms to compress images while maintaining maximum visual quality. It’s also lossy compression, so the quality is lost for good. You can clearly see the difference between an original HD image and the compressed version created by WordPress.
WordPress only compresses most images by up to 20%, while advanced image optimization tools can reduce all image sizes intelligently by up to 80%.
Responsive syntax can provide significant performance improvements over simply uploading a single HD image to be served on all devices and screens. However, it’s still only limited to a set number of breakpoints (typically 3 or 4). Since it’s not dynamic, a whole spectrum of possible image sizes is not created or used.
Responsive syntax code is not scalable and can quickly lead to code that’s bloated, messy, and hard to read.
WordPress doesn’t accelerate image delivery by automatically caching and serving them via a global CDN, although this can be done using other tools.

Another important optimization feature that WordPress does not have is auto-conversion to next-gen image file formats. Different image formats offer different performance benefits on different devices. Some formats also enable higher levels of compression while maintaining visual fidelity.

Next-gen formats like WebP, AVIF, and JPEG-2000 are considered to be the most optimal formats on compatible devices. For example, until recently, WebP would be the optimal choice on Chrome browsers, while JPEG-4000 would be optimal on Safari browsers.

However, WordPress will simply serve images in the same formats in which they were originally uploaded to all visitors.

How to Measure the Image Performance of a WordPress Website?

As the undisputed king of search engines, we’ll base most of our performance metrics on guidelines established by Google.

Along with its various performance updates, Google has released a number of guidelines for developers as well as the tools to test and improve their websites according to said guidelines.

Google introduced Core Web Vitals as the primary metrics for measuring a web page’s performance and its effect on the user experience. Thus, Core Web Vitals are referred to as “user-centric performance metrics.” They are an attempt to give developers a testable and quantifiable way to measure an elusive and abstract concept such as “user experience.”

Combined with a number of other factors, Core Web Vitals constitute a major part of the overall page experience signal:

You can find a complete introduction to Core Web Vitals here. However, they currently consist of three main metrics:

LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): The time it takes the largest above-the-fold element on your page to load. This is typically a full-sized image or hero section.
FID (First Input Delay): The delay from the moment a user first interacts with an element on the page until it becomes responsive.
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): The visual stability with which the elements on a page load.

Here is an illustration of how these metrics are scored:

While these are the three most important metrics to optimize, they are not the only ones. Google still measures other metrics like the FCP (First Contentful Paint), SI (Speed Index), as well as the TTFB (Time to First Byte), TBT (Total Blocking Time), and TTI (Time to Interactive).

A number of these metrics are directly affected by the images used on your web pages. For example, LCP, FCP, and SI are direct indicators of how fast the content of your web page loads and depends on the overall byte size of the page. However, it can also indirectly affect FID by keeping the main thread busy with rendering large amounts of image content or the perceived CLS by delaying the time it takes large images to load.

These metrics apply to all websites, whether they are custom-made or built using a CMS like WordPress.

When using tools like Lighthouse or PageSpeed Insights, you’ll also get scored based on other flags Google deems important. Some of them are specific to images, such as properly sizing images and serving images in next-gen formats.

If you only use built-in WordPress image optimization, you’ll get flagged for the following opportunities for improvement:

Some of the audits it will pass, however, are deferring offscreen images (lazy loading) and efficiently coding images (due to compression):

A Better Way to Optimize WordPress Images: ImageEngine

Billions of websites are all vying for prime real estate on Google SERPs, as well as the attention of an increasingly fussy internet-using public. Every inch matters when it comes to giving your website a competitive advantage.

So, how can you eliminate those remaining performance flags and deliver highly optimized images that will keep both your visitors and Google happy?

Sure, you could manually optimize images using software like PhotoShop or GIMP. However, that will take you hours for each new batch of images. Plus, you still won’t benefit from any automated adaptive optimization.

A more reasonable solution in today’s fast-paced climate is to use a tool developed specifically for maximum image optimization: an image CDN like ImageEngine.

ImageEngine is an automated, cloud-based image optimization service using device detection as well as intelligent image compression using the power of AI and machine learning. It can reduce image payloads by up to 80% while maintaining visual quality and accelerating delivery around the world thanks to its CDN with geographically dispersed PoPs.

Why is ImageEngine Image Optimization Better Than WordPress?

When making a head-to-head comparison, here are the reasons why ImageEngine can deliver better performance:

Device Detection: ImageEngine features built-in device detection. This means it picks up what device a visitor to your website is using and tailors its optimization strategy to what’s best for that specific device.
Client hints: By supporting client hints, ImageEngine has access to even more information regarding the device and browser to make better optimization decisions.
Next-gen formats: Based on optimal settings, ImageEngine automatically converts and serves images in next-gen formats like WebP, AVIF, JPEG2000, and MP4 (for GIFs).
Save data header: When a Chrome user has save-data mode enabled, ImageEngine will automatically compress images more aggressively to save on data transfer.
CDN with dedicated edge servers: ImageEngine will automatically cache and serve your optimized image assets using its global CDN. Each edge server has device awareness built-in to bring down latency and accelerate delivery. You can also choose to prioritize specific regions.

So, the key differentiator is that ImageEngine can tailor optimizing images for what’s optimal for each of your visitors. ImageEngine is particularly good at serving mobile visitors thanks to WURFL device detection, which can dynamically resize images according to most devices and screen sizes in use today. As of now, this is a completely unique capability that none of its competitors offer.

It allows for far better and more fine-tuned optimization than WordPress’ across-the-board approach to compression and responsive syntax.

If you want, you could turn off WordPress responsive syntax and compression, and you would still experience a performance increase using ImageEngine. However, ImageEngine also plays nice with responsive syntax, so it’s not completely necessary unless you want to serve the highest-fidelity/low-byte-size images possible.

How Does ImageEngine Work with WordPress?

The process ImageEngine uses to integrate with WordPress can be broken down into a few easy steps:

Sign up for an ImageEngine account: ImageEngine offers three pricing plans depending on the scale and features you need as well as a no-commitment 30-day free trial.
Specify your image origin: This tells ImageEngine where to find the original versions of your images. For a WordPress website, you can just use your domain, e.g., https://mywordpresswebsite.com. ImageEngine will then automatically pull the images you’ve uploaded to your WordPress website.

Copy the Delivery Address: After you create an account and specify your image origin, ImageEngine will provide you with a Delivery Address. A Delivery Address is your own unique address that will be used in your <img> tags to point back to the ImageEngine service. Delivery Addresses may be on a shared domain (imgeng.in) or customized using a domain that you own. A Delivery Address typically looks something like {random_string}.cdn.imgeng.in. If your images are uploaded to the default WordPress folder /wp-content/uploads/, you can access your optimized images from ImageEngine simply by changing your website domain. For example, by typing {imageengine_domain}.cdn.imgeng.in/wp-content/uploads/myimage.jpg into your browser, you’ll see the optimized version of that image. Just press the copy button next to the Delivery Address and use it in the next step configuring the plugin.

Install the ImageEngine Optimizer CDN plugin: The plugin is completely free and can be installed just like any other plugin from the WordPress repository.
Configure and enable ImageEngine Plugin in WordPress: Just go to the plugin under “ImageEngine” in the main navigation menu. Then, copy and paste in your ImageEngine “Delivery Address,” tick the “Enabled” checkbox, and click “Save Changes” to enable ImageEngine:

Now, all ImageEngine basically does is replace your WordPress website domain in image URLs with your new ImageEngine Delivery Address. This makes it a simple, lightweight, and non-interfering plugin that works great with most other plugins and themes. It also doesn’t add unnecessary complexity or weight to your WordPress website pages.

ImageEngine vs Built-in WordPress Image Optimization

So, now let’s get down to business by testing the performance improvement you can expect from using ImageEngine to optimize your image assets.

To do this test, we set up a basic WordPress page containing a number of high-quality images. I then used PageSpeed Insights and the Lighthouse Performance Calculator to get the performance scores before and after using ImageEngine.

Importantly, we conducted this test from a mobile-first perspective. Not only has mobile internet traffic surpassed desktop traffic globally, but Google themselves have committed to mobile-first indexing as a result.

Here is a PageSpeed score using the Lighthouse calculator for WordPress with no image optimization:

As we can see, both Core Web Vitals and other important metrics were flagged as “needs improvement.” Specifically, the LCP, FCP, and TBT. In this case, both the LCP and FCP were a high-res featured image at the top of the page.

If we go to the opportunities for improvement highlighted by PageSpeed, we see where the issues come from. We could still save as much as 4.2s of loading time by properly resizing images and a further 2.7s by serving them in next-gen formats:

So, now let’s see how much ImageEngine can improve on that.

The same test run on my WordPress website using ImageEngine got the following results:

As you can see, we now have a 100 PageSpeed score. I saved roughly 2.5s on the SI (~86%) as well as roughly 1.7s on the LCP (~60%). There was also a slight improvement in the FCP.

Not only will you enjoy a stronger page experience signal from Google, but this represents a tangible difference to visitors regarding the speed with which your website loads. That difference will lead to lower bounce rates, increased user satisfaction, and more conversions.

There was also a 53% overall reduction in the total image payload. This is impressive, considering that it’s on top of WordPress’ built-in compression and responsive syntax.

Conclusion

So, as someone with a WordPress website, what can you take away from this?

Well, first of all, WordPress does feature some basic image optimization. And while not perfect, it should help you offer reasonable levels of performance, even if you use a lot of image content.

However, the caveat is that WordPress applies aggressive, across-the-board compression, which will lead to a noticeable reduction in visual quality. If you use WordPress for any type of website where premium quality images are important, this is a concern — for example, as a photography portfolio, exhibition, or image marketplace like Shutterstock.

By using ImageEngine, you can reduce image payloads and accelerate delivery even further without compromising too harshly on visual quality. What’s more, ImageEngine’s adaptive image optimization technology will provide greater improvements to more of your visitors, regardless of what device(s) they use to browse the web.

Whether or not you still want to use WordPress’ built-in optimizations, ImageEngine will deliver significant improvements to your user experience, traffic metrics, and even conversions.

Plus, true to the spirit of WordPress, it’s extremely simple to set up without any advanced configuration. Just sign up for ImageEngine in 3 easy steps, install the plugin, integrate ImageEngine by copy/pasting your image domain, and you’re good to go.

[ This is a sponsored post on behalf of ImageEngine ]

Source

The post WordPress Website Analysis: Before & After ImageEngine first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

8 février 2022/par Service comm.

Inspecting Joins in PostgreSQL

Actualités, Méthodes et organisation des process IT

Introduction

Relational databases distribute their data across many tables by normalization or according to business entities. This makes maintaining a growing database schema easier. Real-world queries often span across multiple tables, and hence joining these tables is inevitable.

PostgreSQL uses many algorithms to join tables. In this article, we will see how joins work behind the scenes from a planner perspective and understand how to optimize them.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

7 janvier 2022/par Service comm.

Stopping Cybersecurity Threats: Why Databases Matter

Actualités, Méthodes et organisation des process IT

From intrusion detection to threat analysis to endpoint security, the effectiveness of cybersecurity efforts often boils down to how much data can be processed in real-time with the most advanced algorithms and models.

Many factors are obviously involved in stopping cybersecurity threats effectively. However, the databases responsible for processing the billions or trillions of events per day (from millions of endpoints) play a particularly crucial role. High throughput and low latency directly correlate with better insights as well as more threats discovered and mitigated in near real-time. Cybersecurity data-intensive systems are incredibly complex: many span 4+ data centers with database clusters exceeding 1000 nodes and petabytes of heterogeneous data under active management.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

29 décembre 2021/par Service comm.

What Will AI Bring to the Cybersecurity Space in 2022

Actualités, Méthodes et organisation des process IT

Over the last year, artificial intelligence (AI) has become a huge part of our everyday lives, which is something of a mixed bag that has brought along a wide variety of both positive and negative influences. On one hand, there are algorithms that are designed to perform a largely marketing-related series of tasks, which are perhaps those best known to individuals outside of the technical space. Think of the algorithms curating your TikTok feed and personalizing suggestions on YouTube. The AI that calculates your fastest morning commute based on virtual maps, your vehicle, and current traffic conditions is also a fairly visible one that has had its share of media attention.

A particular area, though, in which AI has become crucial is cybersecurity. Cybercriminals are increasingly harnessing AI to automate breaches and crack complex systems. Sophisticated, large-scale social engineering attacks and deep fakes are prime examples of this trend. Perhaps more subtle techniques, such as those involving AI-driven data compression algorithms, will soon become an even more important part of the space in the year to come.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

2 décembre 2021/par Service comm.

7 UX Principles to Boost SERPs

Actualités, Actualités

User experience is one of the most important principles of web design. There’s no doubt that you focus on UX with every page you design on the web, whether it’s a portfolio, a profile page, or an entire website.

Unfortunately, what many experts forget is that UX doesn’t just apply to digital pages. That means that you need to discover the right UX strategies for everything from your website homepages to your email marketing messages and even your listings on Google.

Today, we’re going to explore ways you can apply UX principles to your client’s image on search engines.

Why Your Search Engine Listing Matters

Let’s start with the basics…

89% of customers start their purchasing process with a search engine.

That means that whether you’re creating a portfolio to sell your services or building a website for a client, the first connection a customer has with your design isn’t on the homepage.

Developers and designers know that first impressions count when it comes to succeeding online. However, they assume that those first impressions happen on a social media channel, a landing page, or a home page.

The truth is that most of the time, you’re driving a specific experience for an end-user before you even realize it. Before you can wow an audience with a beautiful site design or a fantastic CTA offer, you need to convince them to click on your Google link.

Just as UX on a website is all about giving your audience what they need in an informed and strategic manner, UX in search engine results works the same way.

How to Make Your Search Listing Stand Out with UX

So, how do you begin to apply the principles of UX to your Google Search results?

It’s much easier than you’d think.

Step 1: Show Immediate Value

Delivering an excellent experience on a website often means providing end-users with the information they need as quickly as possible. Imagine designing a landing page; you wouldn’t want your audience to scroll forever to find what they need. Instead, you’d make sure that the value of the page was immediately apparent.

When creating an image for your search engine listing, you’ll need to take the same approach. This often means thinking carefully about two things:

Your headline
Your meta description

Around 8 out of 10 users say that they’ll click a title if it’s compelling. That means that before you do anything else to improve your SEO strategy, you need to make sure that the title of your web page is going to grab the audience’s attention.

The best titles deliver instant value.

Immediately, these titles tell the audience exactly what they’re going to get when they click onto the page. The promise drives action, while clarity highlights the informed nature of the brand.

The great thing about using an excellent title for a page is that it doesn’t matter where you’re ranked on the search results. Whether you’re number 2 or number 5, your customers will click if they find something they want.

It’s just like using a CTA on a landing page. Make sure your titles are:

Informative: Show your audience value immediately
Optimized for mobile: Remember, your audience might not see your full title on some screens. That means that you need to make the initial words count.
Easy to read: Keep it short, simple, and straightforward. Speak the end-user’s language

Step 2: Build Trust with Your URLs

Trust factors are another essential part of good UX.

When designing a website for a new brand, you know that it’s your job to make visitors feel at ease. Even in today’s digital world, many customers won’t feel comfortable giving their money or details to a new company.

Within the website that you design, you can implement things like trust symbols, reviews, and testimonials to enhance brand credibility. In the search engines, it all starts with your URL.

Search-friendly URLs that highlight the nature of the page will put your audience’s mind at ease. When they click on a page about “What is SEO” in the SERPs, they want to see an URL that matches, not a bunch of numbers and symbols

Use search-friendly permalink structures to make your listing seem more authoritative. This will increase the chances of your customer clicking through to a page and make them more likely to share the link with friends.

Once you decide on a link structure, make sure that it stays consistent throughout the entire site. If a link doesn’t appear to match the rest of the URLs that your audience sees for your website, they may think they’re on the wrong page. That increases your bounce rate.

Step 3: Be Informative with Your Meta Description

To deliver excellent UX on a website, you ensure that your visitor can find all the answers to their most pressing questions as quickly as possible. This includes providing the right information on each page and using the correct navigational structure to support a visitor’s journey.

In the SERPs, you can deliver that same informative experience with a meta description. Although meta descriptions often get ignored, they can provide a lot of value and help you or your client make the right first impression.

To master your meta descriptions:

Use the full 160 characters: Make the most of your meta description by providing as much useful information as you can within that small space.
Include a CTA: Just as CTAs help guide customers through the pages on a website, they can assist with pulling in clicks on the SERPs. A call to action like “read about the” or “click here” makes sense when you’re boosting your search image.
Focus on value: Concentrate on providing your customers with an insight into what’s in it for them if they click on your listing.

Don’t forget that adding keywords to your meta description is often helpful too. Keywords will boost your chances of a higher ranking, but they’ll also show your audience that they’re looking at the right result.

Step 4: Draw the Eye with Rich Snippets

You’ve probably noticed that the search engine result pages have changed quite a bit in the last couple of years. As Google strives to make results more relevant and informative, we’ve seen the rise of things like rich snippets. Rich snippets are excellent for telling your audience where to look.

On a website, you would use design elements, like contrasting colors and animation, to pull your audience’s attention to a specific space. In search engines, rich snippets can drive the same outcomes. The difference is that instead of telling a visitor what to do next on a page, you’re telling them to click on your site, not a competitor’s.

When Google introduced rich snippets, it wanted to provide administrators with a way of showcasing their best content. Rich snippets are most commonly used today on product and contact pages because they can show off reviews.

Install a rich snippet plugin into your site if you’re a WordPress user or your client is. When you enter the content that you need into the website, use the drop-down menu in your Rich snippet tool to configure the snippet.

Ideally, you’ll want to aim for the full, rich snippet if you want to stand out at the top of the search results. Most featured snippets have both text and an image. You need to access both of these by writing great content and combining it with a relevant image.

Step 5: Provide Diversity (Take Up More of the Results)

As a website designer or developer, you’ll know that different people will often be drawn to different things. Some of your visitors might immediately see a set of bullet-points and use them to search for the answer to their question. Other visitors will want pictures or videos to guide them. So, how do you deliver that kind of diversity in the SERPS?

The easiest option is to aim to take up more of the search result pages. Google now delivers a bunch of different ways for customers to get the answers they crave. When you search for “How to use Google my Business” on Google, you’ll see links to blogs, as well as a list of YouTube Videos and the “People Also Ask” section.

Making sure that you or a client has different content rankings for the same keywords can significantly improve any customer’s experience on the search engines. Often, the process of spreading your image out across the SERPs is as simple as creating some different kinds of content.

To access the benefits of video, ask your client to create YouTube videos for some of their most commonly asked questions or most covered topics. If you’re helping with SEO marketing for your client, then make sure they have an FAQ page or a way of answering questions quickly and concisely on articles, so they’re more likely to appear in “People Also Ask”.

Step 6: Add Authority with Google My Business

Speaking of Google My Business, that’s another excellent tool for improving UX in the search results. It allows business owners to manage how information appears in the search results.

With this service, you can manage a company’s position on Google maps, the Knowledge Graph, and any online reviews. Establishing a company’s location is one of the most important things you can do to help audiences find a business quickly. Remember, half of the customers that do a local search on a smartphone end up visiting the store within the same day.

Start by setting up the Google Business listing for yourself or your client. All you need to do is hit the “Start Now” button and fill out every relevant field offered by Google. The more information you can add to Google My Business, the more your listing will stand out. Make sure you:

Choose a category for a business, like “Grocery store.”
Load up high-quality and high-resolution images
Ensure your information matches on every platform
Use a local number for contact
Encourage reviews to give your listing a five-star rating

Taking advantage of a Google My Business listing will ensure that your audience has all the information they need to make an informed decision about your company before they click through to the site. This means that you or your client gets more warm leads and fewer people stumbling onto your website that might not want to buy from you.

Step 7: Use Structured Data Markup to Answer Questions

If you’re already using rich snippets in your Google listings, you should also have a plan for structured schema markup. Schema markup on Google tells the search engines what your data means. This means that you can add extra information to your listings that will more accurately guide your customers to the support they need.

Providing additional schema markup information to your listings gives them an extra finishing touch to ensure that they stand out from the competition. For example, you might add something like a “product price” to a product page or information about the product’s availability.

Alternatively, you could provide the people who see a search result with other options. This could be an excellent option if you’re concerned that some of the people who might come across your listing might need slightly different information.

For instance, you can ask Google to list other pages along with your search results that customers can “jump to” if they need additional insights.

Baking structured data into your design process when you’re working on a website does many positive things. First, it makes the search engine’s job easier so that you can ensure that you or your client ranks higher. Additionally, it means that your web listings will be more thorough and valuable.

Since UX is all about giving your audience the best possible experience with a brand, that starts with making sure they get the information they need in the search results.

Constantly Improve and Experiment

Remember, as you begin to embed elements of UX into your search engine listings, it’s essential to be aware of relevant evolutions. Ultimately, the needs of any audience can change very rapidly. Paying attention to your customers and what kind of links they click on the most will provide you with lots of valuable data. You can use Google analytics to A/B test things like titles, pictures, featured snippets, and other things that may affect UX.

At the same time, it’s worth noting that the Google search algorithms are constantly changing too. Running split tests on different pages will give you an insight into what your customers want. However, you’ll need to keep an eye on the latest documentation about Google Search if you want to avoid falling behind the competition.

Like most aspects of exceptional UX, mastering your SERP position isn’t a “set it and forget it” strategy. Instead, you’ll need to work on constantly expanding your knowledge if you want to show clients that you can combine UX and SEO effectively.

Make sure you have plenty of tools set up to offer reports and insights into the kind of changes that you may need to make to align with search engine expectations.

Making the Most of UX in the SERPS

It’s easy to forget that there’s more to UX than making your buttons clickable on mobile devices or ensuring that scrolling feels smooth. For a designer or developer to deliver excellent UX for a brand, they need to consider every interaction that a company and customer has.

This means starting with the way a website appears when it’s listed on the search engines most of the time. Getting your SEO listing right doesn’t just boost your chances of a good ranking. This strategy also improves your reputation with your audience and delivers more meaningful moments in the buyer journey.

Don’t underestimate the power of UX in SERPs.

Featured image via Pexels.

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The post 7 UX Principles to Boost SERPs first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

7 octobre 2021/par Service comm.

Coin Change Problem Using Greedy Algorithm

Actualités, Méthodes et organisation des process IT

In this post, we will look at the solution for Coin Change Problem using Greedy Algorithm.

But before that, let’s understand what Greedy Algorithms are in the first place.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

12 juillet 2021/par Service comm.

What Is The Independent Web And Does It Matter In 2021?

Actualités, Actualités

Ten years ago, people began talking about the “Independent Web.” Although we don’t commonly use the term anymore, that doesn’t mean that it’s not still as vital a topic of discussion today as it was a decade ago.

Today, I want to look at where the term came from, what it refers to today, and why it’s something that all of us in business, marketing, and web design should be thinking about.

What Is The Independent Web?

The Independent Web is a term that was coined back in 2010 by John Battelle.

In “Identity and The Independent Web,” Battelle broaches the subject of internet users losing control of their data, privacy, and decision-making to the likes of social media and search engines.

“When we’re ‘on’ Facebook, Google, or Twitter, we’re plugged into an infrastructure that locks onto us, serving us content and commerce in an automated but increasingly sophisticated fashion. Sure, we navigate around, in control of our experience, but the fact is, the choices provided to us as we navigate are increasingly driven by algorithms modeled on the service’s understanding of our identity.”

That’s the Dependent Web.

This is how Battelle explains the Independent Web:

“There is another part of the web, one where I can stroll a bit more at my own pace, and discover new territory, rather than have territory matched to a presumed identity. And that is the land of the Independent Web.”

In 2010, this referred to websites, search engines, and apps where users and their activity were not tracked. But a lot has changed since then, and many websites that were once safe to peruse without interference or manipulation are no longer.

What Happens When the Dependent Web Takes Over?

Nothing good.

I take that back. It’s not fair to make a blanket statement about Dependent Web platforms and sites. Users can certainly benefit from sharing some of their data with them.

Take Facebook, for instance. Since its creation, it’s enabled people to connect with long-lost friends, stay in touch with distant relatives, enable freelance professionals like ourselves to find like-minded communities, etc.

The same goes for websites and apps that track and use visitor data. Consumers are more than willing to share relevant data with companies so long as they benefit from the resulting personalized experiences.

But the Dependent Web also has a darker side. There are many ways that the Dependent Web costs consumers and businesses control over important things like:

Behavior

If you’ve seen The Social Dilemma, then you know that platforms like Facebook and Google profit from selling their users to advertisers.

That’s right. They’re not just selling user data. They’re selling users themselves. If the algorithms can change the way users behave, these platforms and their advertisers get to cash in big time.

Many websites and apps are also guilty of using manipulation to force users to behave how they want them to.

Personal Data

This one is well-known thanks to the GDPR in the EU and the CCPA in California. Despite these initiatives to protect user data and privacy, the exploitation of personal data on the web remains a huge public concern in recent years.

Content and Branding

This isn’t relevant to websites so much as it is to social media platforms and Google.

Dependent Web platforms ultimately dictate who sees your content and when. And while they’re more than happy to benefit from the traffic and engagement this content brings to their platforms, they’re just as happy to censor or pull down content as they please, just as Skillshare did in 2019 when it deleted half of its courses without telling its course creators.

What’s more, while social media and search engines have become the place to market our businesses, some of our branding gets lost when entering such oversaturated environments.

Income

When algorithms get updated, many businesses often feel the negative effects almost immediately.

For example, Facebook updated its algorithm in 2018 to prioritize “meaningful content.” This pushed out organic business content and pulled regular user content to the top of the heap.

This, in turn, forced businesses to have to pay-to-play if they wanted to use Facebook as a viable marketing platform.

Access

The Dependent Web doesn’t just impact individuals’ experiences. It can have far-reaching effects when one company provides a critical service to a large portion of the population.

We saw this happen in November when AWS went down.

When Amazon Web Services burps and half the Internet goes down maybe just maybe it’s not a great idea to have a single company with so much control over what has essentially become our society’s critical infrastructure?

— Evan Greer (@evan_greer) November 25, 2020

It wasn’t just Amazon’s servers that went down, though. It took out apps and sites like:

1Password
Adobe Spark
Capital Gazette
Coinbase
Glassdoor
Roku
The Washington Post

And there’s absolutely nothing that these businesses or their users could do but sit around and wait… because Amazon hosts a substantial portion of the web.

Innovation

When consumers and businesses become dependent on platforms that predominantly control the way we live and work, it’s difficult for us to stand up for the little guys trying to carve out innovative pathways.

And that’s exactly what we see happen time and time again with Big Tech’s buy-and-kill tactics.

As a result, we really lose the option to choose what we use to improve our lives and our businesses. And innovative thinkers lose the ability to bring much-needed changes to the world because Big Tech wants to own the vast majority of data and users.

How Can We Take Back Control From The Dependent Web?

Many things are happening right now that are trying to push consumers and businesses towards a more Independent Web:

Consumer Privacy Protection: GDPR and CCPA empower consumers to control where their data goes and what it’s used for.

Big Tech Regulations: The Senate held tech regulation hearings with Facebook’s and Twitters’s CEOs.

Public Awareness Initiatives: Films like The Social Dilemma bring greater awareness to what’s happening on social media.

Ad Blocker Adoption: Adblocker usage is at an all-time high.

Private Search Engine Usage: Although Google dominates search engine market share, people are starting to use private search engines like Duck Duck Go.

Private Browsing Growth: Over 60% of the global population is aware of what private browsing is (i.e., incognito mode), and roughly 35% use it when surfing the web.

Self-hosted and Open Source CMS Popularity: The IndieWeb community encourages people to move away from Dependent platforms and build their own websites and communities. This is something that Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress, talked about back in 2012.

“The Internet needs a strong, independent platform for those of us who don’t want to be at the mercy of someone else’s domain. I like to think that if we didn’t create WordPress something else that looks a lot like it would exist. I think Open Source is kind of like our Bill of Rights. It’s our Constitution. If we’re not true to that, nothing else matters.”

As web designers, this is something that should really speak to you, especially if you’ve ever met a lead or client who didn’t understand why they needed a website when they could just advertise on Facebook or Instagram.

A Decentralized Web: Perhaps the most promising of all these initiatives are Solid and Inrupt, which were launched in 2018 by the creator of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee.

As Berners-Lee explained on the Inrupt blog in 2020:

”The Web was always meant to be a platform for creativity, collaboration, and free invention — but that’s not what we are seeing today. Today, business transformation is hampered by different parts of one’s life being managed by different silos, each of which looks after one vertical slice of life, but where the users and teams can’t get the insight from connecting that data. Meanwhile, that data is exploited by the silo in question, leading to increasing, very reasonable, public skepticism about how personal data is being misused. That in turn has led to increasingly complex data regulations.”

This is something we should all keep a close eye on. Consumers and businesses alike are becoming wary of the Dependent Web.

Who better than the creator of the web to lead us towards the Independent Web where we can protect our data and better control our experience?

Featured Image via Pexels.

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21 avril 2021/par Service comm.

Key and Surface Tracking Comes to Chrome

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This week Google announced further details of its plan to remove cookies from ad tracking. The strategy, which the ad giant expects to be fully implemented by 2022, has come about due to increasingly stringent privacy laws in a growing number of territories around the globe.

Google’s first step was the announcement in January of FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts). Google itself is still testing and fine-tuning the system, but in essence, Google will replace 3rd-party cookies in Chrome with groups of anonymized users.

Critics of the plan have questioned whether users will be genuinely anonymous or whether Google will be tracking individuals to group them properly. The answer came earlier this week in a low-key announcement of KaST.

What is KaST?

KaST (Key and Surface Tracking) is the first iteration of Google’s new tracking technology. It works entirely without cookies and is fully device-agnostic.

The technology behind KaST is surprisingly old. It was first trialed in 1987 as a simple process for auditing the input of stenographers. Although the latest version of the technology draws heavily on voice recognition software algorithms, the original version of KaST — software named TAAA (Typist Account Accuracy Audit) — predates modern voice recognition by at least two years.

KaST uses…biomechanical and cognitive patterns, identifying individual users based on their keystrokes.

Just as your voice has a unique, identifiable modulation — anyone who uses telephone banking will be familiar with speaking their password — so too does your biomechanical input.

When you type on a keyboard or a touchscreen, the force, speed, and accuracy with which you hit characters are dependent on two things: your cognitive process and the unique biomechanics of your hands (the bones, ligaments, and muscles).

For example, when I type WordPress, I almost always type it as WordPRess (with a capitalized R). That is one facet of my combined biomechanical and cognitive process.

KaST uses keyboards and touch screens to track combined biomechanical and cognitive patterns, identifying individual users based on their keystrokes.

Mobile Approaches to KaST

KaST is heavily reliant on BMaC (Bio-Mechanical and Cognitive) input. Although Google hasn’t released any data to support the accuracy of KaST, BMaC is known to be surprisingly accurate.

Reports suggest that the KaST algorithm is 89.7% effective for character strings of 12 characters or more, leaping to 97.6% for 19 characters or more on a single device. That makes it too inaccurate for high-end processes like security but well within the necessary margin of error for a non-critical process like serving ads.

Google will be able to identify you on any machine, on any device, in any context, as soon as you type 19 characters or more

When switching to a touch-screen device, the accuracy plummets to just 87.8%. This may be one reason Google has been low-key in its trumpeting of the new technology so far.

According to TechBeat, initial trials of the tri-axis position of a device (X, Y, and Z rotation) were abandoned as inaccurate. Still, even without those additional tracking signals, Google claims KaST on mobile will achieve ~94% accuracy by the 1st quarter of 2022.

What Does KaST Mean for Users?

Much like many of the algorithms that govern our daily lives, KaST will be largely invisible to most of us. Unlike cookies that can be legislated for and removed from a local machine, your BMaC is as inescapable as your DNA.

Where privacy concerns really grow is that your BMaC follows you from device to device. How you type at home is identical to how you type at work. Your personal and professional profiles are now instantly connectable; Google will be able to identify you on any machine, on any device, in any context, as soon as you type 19 characters or more.

KaST Prompts Pre-M1 MacBook Rush

Within 24 hours of KaST’s announcement, Apple stores were reporting rush orders of pre-M1 MacBook Pros. With some stores reportedly selling out late on Wednesday.

The rush came in the wake of a Reddit post — that has since been removed — that claimed that the notoriously bad butterfly keyboard on pre-M1 MacBook Pros circumvented KaST because the inaccuracy of the keystrokes, and the tendency of the keys to stick introduced a random element that disguised the end-user from the KaST algorithm.

Although the Reddit post is unsubstantiated, it transpires that M1 Mac owners may not be the lucky ones after all.

Should You Worry About KaST?

Advocates maintain that KaST — and Google’s wider FLoC strategy — are beneficial to users and the web as a whole. They claim that identifying users without 3rd party cookies does more to protect privacy than hinder it.

Opponents argue that in a digital world rife with user tracking, privacy compromises of this magnitude cannot be contemplated simply to enable more sophisticated ad-serving.

Despite KaST’s early stages of development, privacy concerns are mounting, and a campaign has been launched to regulate Google’s use of the technology.

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1 avril 2021/par Service comm.

The Most Comprehensive Grammarly Review Ever

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Who is Grammarly for? Can a grammar checking tool like Grammarly replace a human editor and proofreader? Is the Grammarly checker worth it? Are the Grammarly free checks sufficient for me, or should I upgrade to Grammarly Premium? Should I install Grammarly on Chrome? How effective is Grammarly for Word? Is downloading the Grammarly desktop app worth it? You have questions…all of which we’re going to answer.

I have been using Grammarly regularly for proofreading my documents and emails since 2015 and have witnessed its evolution as a product firsthand. After checking over three million words during this period, I can confidently say that Grammarly has come a long way. Raising $200M in total funding at a valuation of $1B+ so far, and with more than a million downloads per month, Grammarly is now a top-1000 website by traffic worldwide.

I write a lot, so Grammarly has been my go-to writing assistant for correcting passages and enhancing my writing. I first tried the Free version, and in May 2020, I upgraded to the Premium version, finally! Grammarly Premium is a great tool that takes care of most of your writing, proofreading, and plagiarism-checking needs for intensive work.

In this article, I’ll explain what Grammarly is, its features, what it does (functions of all versions and products), the pros and cons of using Grammarly, my rating of Grammarly, who should use the Free version, and who should use the Premium version and the difference between the two. I’ll also explain how to use Grammarly properly. I’ll then compare it with other popular tools and suggest which ones suit your needs. In the end, I’ll leave you with my final assessment and FAQs.

What is Grammarly?

Grammarly is an online digital writing assistant that checks for a range of English grammar and spelling mistakes. It also helps enhance the writing through its excellent context-based clarity suggestions (Premium version).

Grammarly is a writing aid that checks not only for spelling slights, grammar rules, and clarity issues but also identifies the tone of the writing to provide relevant instructions through its Error Cards. It also has a plagiarism checking tool, which is available with the Premium version.

Grammarly employs AI (Artificial Intelligence) and NLP (Natural Language Processing) to check the content for all possible syntactic and semantic issues. Although it has an extensive database, it is still incomparable to human proofreading and professional editing, especially when it comes to understanding the context of the writing.

Grammarly Overview For Beginners – Compatible, Accessible

Grammarly is astonishingly easy to use, primarily due to its compatibility via the Browser Extension/Add-on, from which you can use it on millions of websites. Moreover, its other product forms, i.e., the Online Editor (Web App), Desktop Application, MS Word/Outlook Add-in, and the Grammarly Keyboard for iOS/Android, make it accessible everywhere.

How Does Grammarly Work?

It automatically detects issues in the content in the Desktop App, the Online Editor, and the browser (even in Google Docs, which is in Beta at this time) via its add-on. Yet, for the MS Word Add-in, you have to click the Grammarly button to activate the app. Grammarly explains all detected issues via an Error Card that contains relevant information for each item. You can implement it by clicking the suggestion, ‘Ignore’ the problem, or ‘Add to Dictionary’ (in case of a spelling issue). You can also provide feedback (if you think that the suggestion is wrong). The Free version checks only for spelling and critical grammar mistakes. The Premium version also reveals a ton of advanced ‘Clarity Issues.’

The Tone Detector helps you estimate the entire document’s tone, which can be valuable for many writers who target a particular audience, e.g., formal writing for the business audience.

Limitations of Grammarly (For Beginners)

Grammarly, overall, excels at almost all the things it does, and therefore the free version is recommended for everyone. Grammarly provides a generic readability score. Advanced grammar checks like the clarity checker, the plagiarism checker, and many other features are not available for the free version.

Grammarly is dominant amongst its competition, but it doesn’t solve all English language problems. It is useful at picking syntactic mistakes but still misses significant semantic errors, which can be a problem for people who are not particularly adept at English — as they won’t notice these slips.

The Good	The Bad	& The Ugly
Ease of use – simple, intuitive, and efficient interface	English language only	Tad expensive (notably the monthly subscription at $29.95 per month)
Context-based grammar checking	Not 100% accurate (primarily misses linguistic bloopers)	No free trial for the premium version.
Fantastic grammar checker	Business account starts at three users and charges per number of users (can be a bit expensive for small businesses)	Only one account (license) for the premium version. You can use it on up to five devices.
Convenient tone detector	Insufficient as a standalone tool (doesn’t do everything)	Incomplete sentences can sometimes go undetected
The insightful error cards are instructional and productive (they help you to improve your writing)	Unlike ProWritingAid and Hemmingway Editor, it doesn’t provide much information about the whole passage, Grammarly’s scoring is generic right now	No substitutes are suggested in many cases. Example: synonyms, rephrasing suggestions for the intricate text, etc.
Integrates well with MS Word, Outlook, WordPress, emails, social media, and millions of websites	The free version is limited to fundamental grammar and spelling mistakes	Cannot determine contextually incorrect sentences (it cannot perceive the meaning of the written document)
Knowledge-base	The premium version identifies repeated words but sometimes doesn’t provide a suitable alternative to use	Short on vocabulary suggestions (not as competent as the free thesaurus writing tool)
The Grammarly keyboard is available for Android & iOS for FREE	Free version shows the number of advanced clarity mistakes but doesn’t tell you what those mistakes are and where they are	The formatting tool is rudimentary. You have to write in another text editor and then import it to the Grammarly Editor to format your writing accurately
Personal dictionary	Google Docs is not supported yet (in Beta).	Restricted to English only, and it also doesn’t translate other languages as Ginger does.
The adjust goal option allows you to customize Grammarly’s feedback.	It can miss simple semantic issues, which sometimes can be caught by text editors like Google Docs and MS Word.
Formatting remains the same if you import/upload a document, but it changes if you copy/paste.	Plagiarism Detector is not available for the free version.
Weekly writing stats (sent to user email) can help you identify your problem areas	The browser extension can malfunction, i.e., opening and closing the Grammarly editor within a website (sometimes) duplicates the content
Option to download the detailed performance statistics as a PDF	Sometimes Grammarly doesn’t catch all mistakes on the first try. You have to refresh or scroll to let it run again and see if it finds new issues
Grammarly blog teaches English grammar rules, writing techniques, and more
Context-based checker is more accurate than competitors
Provides rephrasing suggestions for complicated sentences
The premium version excels at catching inconsistencies

Who Should Use Grammarly?

Free:

Everyone

Despite being limited, Grammarly (free version) is a phenomenal tool. Therefore, I would heartily recommend it to everyone. It’s free, and it’s convenient.

The free version should be everyone’s go-to tool for proofreading social media statuses, tweets, and comments. It is also crucial for editing all sorts of short-form writing, such as emails. Professional writers can also use the free version to catch typos and basic grammar mistakes.

Premium:

Professional Writers
Authors
Bloggers
Students
Businesses that require extensive writing
Marketers/Advertisers
Content Creators
Editors and Proofreaders

Apart from all the necessary features offered in the Grammarly free version, Grammarly Premium provides several other valuable elements such as an advanced clarity checker and a robust plagiarism checker. All these help you enhance your writing effectively.

Grammarly Premium is a helpful tool for people who are already adept at English as it still requires plenty of work on catching semantic errors. Businesses and Professional writers who do intensive writing should give the Premium version a go. From writing, editing, and proofreading to plagiarism checking, it is almost an All-in-One solution (though not a substitute for a human proofreader – at least yet).

Who Shouldn’t Use Grammarly?

Free:

Students
English Learners

People, especially students who cannot learn from their mistakes, should avoid relying on Grammarly as it can hinder their learning process.

Granted, Instructional Error Cards and Weekly Writing Stats (emailed to the user) can pinpoint your weak points, but educating yourself from there on is entirely up to you.

Just like ‘Auto-correct’ hinders people’s ability to learn proper spellings, Grammarly can do that for learning grammar rules.

Premium:

Amateur Writers
Infrequent Users

Grammarly is an excellent tool, but it still makes slips, which can be misleading for amateurs who don’t have a solid grip on the English language. Therefore, if you are not proficient enough in English, you should only subscribe to Grammarly Premium if you can remember that it is not a replacement for a human teacher or a proofreader. Or, you can continue using the Free version, which is competent enough to check fundamental grammar and spelling oversights.

Furthermore, businesses and professionals who are infrequent users can stick to the Free version if they feel they will not be making the most of the Premium version.

Grammarly vs. Basic Text Editors

A comparison with basic text editors will illustrate Grammarly’s true potential:

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is the most popular and feature-packed text editor. It includes a basic grammar and spelling checker that catches typos in real-time. However, MS Word is very limited in its grammar checking capabilities.

I’ve written many articles using Microsoft Word, which were considered error-free by the text editor. However, when I put the same documents in Grammarly’s Editor, there’d always be some critical mistakes caught by the Free version and some clarity or consistency mistakes pointed out by the Premium version.

Grammarly finds inconsistent punctuation that MS Word missed.

Google Docs

Google Docs is another mighty text editor, which is free to use. It also has numerous features, including spelling and grammar checking. Google Docs’ grammar and spelling check software only flag issues with an alternative in its database; otherwise, it ignores them. It auto-corrects the obvious spelling blunders. It can also pick missing determiners (articles) better than Microsoft Word. However, once again, when compared to Grammarly, Google Docs falls far behind in exposing slip-ups.

Grammarly in Google Docs.

Google Docs performs a little better than MS Word when it comes to punctuation, yet it is incomparable to Grammarly, which is in Beta for Google Docs.

How to Write Better With Grammarly

Grammarly proofreads content written in English (American, British, Australian, and Canadian) and gives detailed performance statistics. Weekly Writing Statistics are emailed to the user account, and you can download a complete PDF that extensively illustrates your performance.

From scoring to pointing out all mistakes and amendments, Grammarly doles out a comprehensive document that you can use to improve your weak areas. Grammarly can function as your teacher in this regard if you learn from these mistakes and try to improve your performance, especially in areas pointed out by the software.

Try Grammarly for yourself.

All Grammarly Products

Grammarly is available in the following product versions:

Grammarly for Business (3 or more users)
Grammarly @edu (for Educational Organizations/Institutes)
Grammarly Premium
Grammarly Free

All these versions are usable in the following product forms:

1. Online Editor

Grammarly’s web application acts as an online editor to upload a document, copy/paste content, or write directly. It has a 4MB size-limit and a 100,000 characters-limit (about 60 pages). When you upload a file, a pop-up tells you that your document formatting will restore when downloaded.

Grammarly’s interface for the online version and the desktop app is identical, and it is outstandingly intuitive and accessible. A dedicated writing assistant panel on the right side contains valuable information and choosable options. It also lists and categorizes all the errors found.

A bar at the bottom contains a few formatting options and some length-related info about the passage.

2. Browser Extension

Typing in any online text editor activates the ’Grammar and Spelling Checker’ when the extension is on. It underlines (in red) all the issues in real-time. Hovering over the problem pops up an Error Card that contains corrections and more information about the mistake.

You can use the Grammarly icon at the bottom-right of online text editors to activate or deactivate the tool. This option is beneficial because sometimes you want to check your content but don’t want distractions while writing. I recommend turning on the extension after you have completed your draft and now want to begin the editing phase. You can also open the Grammarly editor within a website for added convenience.

The Grammarly add-on is available on all popular browsers – Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge Chromium, etc. And it is compatible with millions of websites and the web versions of many desktop applications, including WordPress, emails, social media, work platforms, and many more. Grammarly for Google Docs is in Beta right now. The Grammarly extension also gives you the option to ’Show Definitions and Synonyms via Double Click,’ which works like a dictionary within any website.

The Grammarly icon within your text editors tells you the total number of issues found on the Grammarly pop-up. However, you have to scroll through the document and find those problems yourself. It is not as efficient as the online Editor. The extension only shows the critical issues inside your online editor. It gives you the option to open the online Grammarly Editor to see the errors pointed out by the Premium version. The browser extension also works slower for lengthy content. It is convenient but only for short-form writing.

3. Desktop Application

The desktop application, like all other products, is online only and doesn’t work offline. An internet connection is necessary as Grammarly uses its database to process the document. The desktop app is identical to the online editor.

4. Microsoft Word/Outlook Add-in

You can integrate Grammarly into Microsoft Word and Outlook through their Add-in. Unlike other Grammarly product forms, the MS Word Add-in activates when clicked — otherwise, it stays dormant. When enabled, a right panel appears with suggestions, Error Cards, and statistics, just like the Online Editor and the Desktop App. Grammarly has no character limit for the MS Word Add-in.

5. The Grammarly Keyboard App

You can download Grammarly Keyboard for both Android and iOS through their respective stores. Now available for iPad as well, it is easy to use as it works like the auto-correct feature available in the smart devices. It gives suggestions when Grammarly encounters any grammar or spelling lapses.

Grammarly Pricing Plans

Grammarly is a tad expensive when purchased as a monthly subscription, which costs $29.95 per month. The quarterly ($59.95) and annual ($139.95) subscriptions offer better value for money. Through its weekly newsletter and other channels, Grammarly presents discount offers to its free users from time to time, which you can avail yourself of to get an even cheaper deal for the Grammarly Premium subscription.

Grammarly Pricing Plans for Premium Version – Monthly, Quarterly, Annual

Free

Grammarly Free is limited but still adequate for many as it gives you critical grammar and spelling checking capabilities. It is usable in all product forms.

Premium

Grammarly Premium, along with Spelling and Grammar Checker, offers an advanced Clarity Checker, Plagiarism Checker, and experimental Tone Detector. All Grammarly features are available for the Premium version.

Business

Grammarly for Business offers all the Premium features for three or more users. It also gives you an admin panel to customize your experience. You can add a personal dictionary, among other things, which will be accessible to all users. Grammarly for Business includes:

Individual accounts
Admin panel
Centralized billing
Team usage stats
Priority email support
Single sign-on

Grammarly Business Pricing Example

Grammarly @Edu

Grammarly @Edu is also an available option, of which educational institutes and organizations can avail themselves. It caters to a large number of accounts, as it targets students.

Grammarly Features

UI

Grammarly has hands-down the best interface among all the writing assistants. It is incredibly intuitive and user-friendly.

Compatibility

Grammarly integrates with millions of sites and text editors. It is also compatible with MS Word (both for Windows and Mac) and Outlook via an Add-in. It is still in Beta for Google Docs.

Grammarly is incompatible with some desktop apps, but you can use Grammarly in their web versions.

Supported Document Formats

For products where you can upload text documents, the supported document formats are: .docx, .rtf, .odt, .txt.

Languages

Grammarly is restricted to English only, including American, British, Canadian, and Australian English. Grammarly doesn’t support foreign language phrases, translation, etc., at the moment.

Grammarly Functions

Spelling Checker

Grammarly checks for spelling mistakes based on context. It is excellent at differentiating between commonly misspelled words. It can also tell Common and Proper Nouns apart (in most cases).

Grammar Checker

All Grammarly products on all plans help you check for grammatical errors and syntax issues in the provided document in real-time.

Plagiarism Checker

The Plagiarism Checker is not available for the free version. When I inquired about plagiarism in hard copy, patch plagiarism, and ProQuest, here’s what Grammarly Support had to say:

“We teamed up with ProQuest to provide even more accurate plagiarism checks: currently, Grammarly’s plagiarism checker searches major proprietary databases along with over 16 billion web pages. You can check ProQuest libraries here http://www.proquest.com/libraries/academic/databases/.

Please note that Grammarly catches verbatim plagiarism and slightly modified text that can be classified as unoriginal. As comprehensive as our algorithms are, significantly rephrased text oftentimes can’t be traced back to its source.”

Note: I checked this document with both; Grammarly Plagiarism Checker is not as robust as Copyscape, but it’s catching up fast.

Tone Detector

It detects a variety of tones based on the context of the given passage.

Grammarly Tone Detector

Clarity Checker

Grammarly checks for advanced issues for the Premium, Education, and Business versions. The Free version checks for limited conciseness; the rest is available on the Premium version only.

Grammarly Support

Grammarly offers support via its extensive, well-written, and user-oriented knowledge-base. Grammarly also provides support via email (24/7 for the Business version) if you can’t find a relevant answer in the knowledge-base.

Moreover, the Grammarly Blog teaches, among other useful things, the proper use of grammar in English.

Grammarly Blog

The Grammarly Blog teaches the rules of English grammar and gives tips on writing. It also specializes in teaching about the most common blunders, which are also a strong suit of the application.

Detailed Performance Statistics

You can view the ‘Statistics Summary Card’ by clicking the ‘See Performance’ button. Or you can download the detailed statistics via the Download PDF Report option. These statistics are in-depth and contain exhaustive information regarding the whole document, including your score, errors, reading time, speaking time, and more.

Grammarly Performance Stats

Adjust Goals

You can customize Grammarly’s feedback according to your needs. This option gives you an adjustable chart where you can set your preferences according to your needs. It helps with the document’s tone, the difficulty level depending on the target audience, and more.

Grammarly Adjust Goals

Get Expert Writing Help

Grammarly gives you the option to get your work checked by experts. It’s a particularly convenient option for those who cannot or do not want to rely on their proofreading skills better than finding and hiring someone yourself.

Grammarly Expert Writing Help

Is Grammarly Really Free to Use?

Grammarly has a free version with a powerful-enough spelling and grammar checker. It is available in all product forms – Online Editor, Browser Extension, Desktop Application, and Word Add-in. The Free version checks for up to 150 grammar rules.

It is superb at uncovering elementary grammar fallacies due to its context-based checking, powered by its robust AI and NLP software.

The Free version doesn’t show clarity issues. It reveals the number of clarity issues in the content, but it doesn’t tell you what and where those issues are.

Is Grammarly Premium Worth The Cost?

The Premium version shows advanced grammar issues such as clarity, conciseness, dangling modifiers, squinting modifiers, monotonous sentences, intricate text, split infinitives, and many more. It checks for over 400 rules of English grammar, far more than the Free version. Grammarly Premium also has a plagiarism checker within the interface, which is mighty-enough for online plagiarism checking.

Grammar Checks

When you run some text through any version and product form of the app, Grammarly will process the document for the following:

Sensitivity
Determiners
Voice
Conciseness
Conjunctions
References
Nouns
Fluency
Word order
Spelling
Conventions
Syntax
Variety
Formality
Pronouns
Prepositions
Verbs
Numerals
Punctuation
Modifiers
Consistency
Correctness
Clarity
Delivery
Readability
Engagement

However, Grammarly will not point out many of these mistakes for the Free version. It will only tell you the number of such problems in your content.

Grammarly Checklist

Grammarly Free in Action:

Let’s see some examples.

Verbs

Grammarly detecting the wrong form of a verb.

Context-Based Checking

Grammarly Context-Based Checking

Capitalized Words

Grammarly detects unknown words, and if you capitalize them, it considers them proper nouns. It can also miss the incorrect use of a term if you spell it correctly and put it within commas.

Grammarly while dealing with proper nouns, capitalization, and unknown words

Phrases vs. Sentences

Grammarly can differentiate between phrases and sentences. Therefore, you can write headings and subheadings in the form of expression.

Grammarly differentiating between sentences and phrases

Multiple Mistakes in One Sentence

Grammarly catching multiple mistakes in one sentence

Determiners

Grammarly pointing out the wrong determiner-article use

Incomplete Sentences

The Grammarly algorithm is not good enough yet at recognizing incomplete sentences. Grammarly is far from perfect, as evident from these examples. Google Docs suggested ’was because’ for the last line instead of ’is because,’ but Grammarly missed that.

Grammarly can miss incomplete sentences.

Grammarly is only making one suggestion that the article use may be incorrect here in the below image.

Cannot detect incomplete sentences (sometimes) if other issues exist

Grammarly suggests you change the first line in the below image because it believes it’s caught a sentence fragment. You accept the suggestion, and it becomes the second line, which is, again, a sentence fragment, according to Grammarly.

Grammarly ‘sentence fragment’ suggestions

Sometimes, the suggestions are right as well.

Grammarly recognizes sentence fragments in some cases

Punctuation

Comma

Grammarly is a sniffing-hound-on-steroids when it comes to commas — both missing and wrong ones. It pinpoints the exact location where you should place a comma in a sentence. Whether it is between clauses, a list of items, or something else, Grammarly knows if you have missed a comma or placed a wrong one. It also exposes the famous “Oxford Comma.” Grammarly now points out any inconsistent punctuation (curly vs. straight commas, for example) in your articles.

Grammarly pointing out the missing Oxford Comma

Hyphen

First, it points out the missing hyphen. Once you rectify the error, it points out the wrong capitalization. Grammarly works in steps for multiple errors in a sentence.

Grammarly catching a missing hyphen.

Semi-colon & Colon

Grammarly catches the incorrect use of the semi-colon & colon.

Period

Grammarly points out a missing period

Missing Apostrophes

Grammarly can catch missing apostrophes

Grammarly Premium in Action:

Apart from correctness that checks for critical grammar mistakes, the Premium version has options to check for clarity, delivery, and engagement, along with many more correctness checks.

Clarity

Clarity check is not available for the Free version; all other versions of the app have it. It catches linguistic issues that a fundamental grammar checker cannot reveal. These include dangling modifiers, split infinitives, misuse of passive voice, intricate text, inappropriate colloquialisms, etc.

Text Inconsistencies

Grammarly Premium can detect inconsistencies and gives you the option to select one form if a word has been used inconsistently in the same document. It can also detect inconsistent punctuation, for example, curly and straight commas.

Grammarly Premium identifies text inconsistencies.

Rephrasing Suggestions

For unclear or complicated sentences where there might be an issue of a dangling modifier or something else, Grammarly suggests an alternative way to write the same sentence.

Grammarly Premium giving rephrasing suggestions

Wordy Sentences

Grammarly can also note if you have used many unnecessary words in a sentence. If there are more words and less content in a sentence, then it suggests you rephrase it. This option can help you make your content non-fluff.

Passive Voice Misuse

Grammarly is so-so at deciphering when the passive voice is right to use and when you should avoid it in a sentence. My experience is that, more often than not, it will recommend that you rewrite a sentence if it detects passive voice use anywhere.

Grammarly – always – detects passive voice use.

Intricate Text

Grammarly exposes unclear and hard-to-follow sentences in the written piece. Sometimes it gives alternatives (if one is available in its database), but usually, it only tells you to rephrase the sentence to make it more understandable.

Monotonous Sentences

If you continuously write similar sentences in a passage, Grammarly will detect these sentences’ monotonous nature and advise you to rephrase them.

Grammarly detecting a monotonous passage

Sound Confident Suggestion

Grammarly suggesting alternatives to sound confident

Politeness Suggestion

Sound more diplomatic with Grammarly!

Delivery

Grammarly Premium catches informal sentence structure like a preposition at the end of a sentence. Some other informalities include inappropriate colloquialisms, split infinitives, etc.

Grammarly points out informality.

Engagement

Grammarly Premium points out overused words and suggests using an alternative here, but sometimes it doesn’t provide suitable options like the Thesaurus Writing Tool.

Grammarly suggesting engaging alternatives

Most of the time, the suggestions are worth considering, though.

Grammarly is suggesting more engaging alternatives

Grammarly Free vs. Grammarly Premium

The Grammarly Free version catches all critical issues as it checks for 150 Grammar Rules to determine errors in a document. The Premium version looks for over 400 Grammar Rules and detects far more problems than the Free version.

I wrote an article and checked it through both the Free and the Premium versions. Here is the difference between how the stats of both look like before making the suggested changes:

Original Stats (before checking with Grammarly Free)

Original Stats (before checking with Grammarly Premium)

After editing another article and making the suggested changes, here’s how the Free version stats look like:

Grammarly Free Stats

After editing the same article using the Premium version, the stats look like the following:

Grammarly Premium Stats

Grammarly vs. Human Proofreader

Grammarly is a marvelous tool, but it is incomparable to human proofreading. Grammarly cannot detect the sense and meaning of the written text. It catches blunders using English language and grammar rules as efficiently as a machine can. However, some mistakes can slip through Grammarly if there is no syntax error, but just a linguistic or semantic misuse.

Grammarly didn’t suggest anything for a nonsense sentence

Grammarly is not an alternative to human proofreading

Pros of using Grammarly in 2021

Context-Based Grammar Checker

Grammarly is evolving with time and has gotten pretty accurate in identifying common mistakes. Its extensive database helps Grammarly recognize errors based on the context.

Real-Time Grammar and Spelling Checker

Grammarly scours the whole text for errors when you provide it a written document. Thankfully, it also checks for blunders as you write or edit your text in any product form – Chrome Extension, Online Editor, Word Add-in, Desktop App (Windows and Mac), and the Grammarly Keyboard for iOS and Android.

Accessible Interface and Robust Editing

With Grammarly, you get a highly-efficient software, which is not only a phenomenal editor but also incredibly easy to use.

Customizations – Set Goals and Personal Dictionary

You can customize your Set Goals and your Personal Dictionary with the ‘Add to Dictionary’ feature in the Error Cards. This element is convenient for proper nouns and personal vocabulary (even words from a different language).

Tone Detector

Based on your Goals, Grammarly, through its tone detector emojis, cautions you of your tone – the vocabulary and phrasing you are using. You can adjust goals keeping in mind your target audience and choose the most appropriate words to use.

Clarity Checker

Apart from basic grammatical mistakes, Grammarly helps you fix linguistic oversights. It tracks down a wide range of slip-ups, including dangling modifiers, intricate text, split infinitives, passive voice misuse, redundancies, and many other slips. In essence, the Clarity Checker elevates the level of your writing.

Plagiarism Checker

It is a bonus in all senses of the word. It might not be essential to the app, but it certainly assists users. Grammarly plagiarism checker is not the absolute best in the industry, but it does the job swiftly. It checks plagiarism across 16 billion pages on the internet and ProQuest’s database.

Error Cards

Error cards are compact, simple, and instructional. They serve their purpose elegantly. Any shortcoming that you experience in Grammarly’s usage so far is due to its still-not-so-extensive database. Error cards also fall short when it comes to giving suggestions due to this very reason. Otherwise, they are usually handy.

Free Version

You can proofread, remove typos, and analyze the content quickly via the app’s free version. You can also use it before buying the Grammarly Premium subscription.

The Grammarly Keyboard

Supported on both Android and iOS, The Grammarly Keyboard App functions like the auto-correct feature. It gives real-time suggestions about the proper use of grammar and spellings in the written text. Grammarly is now available for iPad and supports hardware keyboards as well.

Grammarly Support

Grammarly provides customer support via its extensive database and email. By now, almost all popular queries have a database entry. Furthermore, the Grammarly Blog assists with learning English grammar rules.

Knowledge-base

Grammarly has amassed a plethora of information in its database, which helps run the application smoothly. This knowledge allows the app to identify problems based on the context. You will find accurate solutions for most common issues, thanks to its extensive database growing with time.

Grammarly Blog

The Grammarly Blog focuses on teaching people English grammar rules and common mistakes in their writing. There are dedicated articles for each item; separate sections cover different punctuation like Commas, Hyphens, etc.

Writing Stats

The weekly writing stats sent via email and the downloadable detailed performance stats PDF give you comprehensive feedback on your writing. This feature helps you pinpoint your mistakes better than anything else available in the market.

Insights

Grammarly Insights are the real-time feedback that the application provides regarding your writing. It bases it on your Set Goals. You can customize this feedback according to your needs, which can be amazingly valuable if you cover different audiences. Insights also include the reading time and speaking time, which is particularly useful to Vloggers, YouTubers, etc., who can quickly determine how much time their script will take on the video.

Reliability

Grammarly is the most popular and best-in-class digital writing assistant tool, growing exponentially both in features and number of users, indicating that it will provide the best services to its customer base.

Grammarly is notably popular among professional writers, bloggers, publishers, marketers, and businesses, showing that Grammarly has a demanding clientele to please. Therefore, their standards are supposed to be (and they are) higher than the competition.

Product Investment

Having more than a million downloads per month and being a top-1000 website by traffic globally, Grammarly has raised $200M in total funding at a valuation of $1B+ so far, which speaks volumes of its success, investors’ trust in the product, and its projections.

Cons of using Grammarly in 2021

Free Version is Limited

The Free version identifies only critical grammatical errors, typos, and limited ‘conciseness.’ Moreover, it only lists the number of total advanced clarity issues in the text with an ‘Ad’ that keeps asking you to buy a Premium subscription for these issues. It also doesn’t support plagiarism checking.

Premium Version is a Tad Expensive

The biggest drawback of Grammarly is that it is a tad expensive for many. Grammarly Premium can be a costly subscription at $30 per month if you don’t have much writing to proofread.

Semantic Issues

Grammarly is good at picking fundamental grammar mistakes – even context-based grammar issues, but it still cannot understand what you have written. If you write a nonsense sentence with no grammatical fault, Grammarly will consider it a correct sentence. It can also happen with incomplete sentences.

Insufficient

Grammarly is a mighty grammar checker but lags behind when it comes to rating the whole document. Its scoring is based on mistakes and length of words and sentences only, unlike some other tools that provide a more comprehensive text scoring. Grammarly is also not an alternative to human proofreading as it can’t understand the meaning of the written content.

Limited Vocabulary

Grammarly has a limited vocabulary in its database so far, which leads to inaccurate synonym suggestions at times. The Thesaurus Writing Tool, another free digital writing assistant, has an extensive vocabulary due to its vast Thesaurus.com database and offers far more vocabulary suggestions and alternatives.

Alternatives Not Provided for Every Issue

For many suggestions like Intricate Text, Split Infinitives, etc., Grammarly doesn’t provide an alternative. You have to rephrase the sentence yourself. Grammarly only points out bloopers sometimes, which can be a little frustrating for amateur writers.

Not Supported Everywhere

Grammarly is not supported everywhere yet. The most prominent places are Google Docs (in Beta at the moment – which doesn’t include Grammarly Premium corrections and the Pop-up Grammarly Editor) and desktop applications. However, it works on the web versions of these desktop applications via its browser extension.

Insufficient Formatting Options in the Editor

Grammarly Editor is imperfect for writing purposes. It is incomparable to authoritative text editors like Microsoft Word and Google Docs. So you have to write your text in another editor and import it in Grammarly for proofreading if you want proper formatting of your document.

Irritating and Aggressive Advertising

Grammarly wants you to upgrade all the time. When using the Free version, you’ll get constant notifications to upgrade to Premium to check for issues that are not available in the Free version.

Only One Language Supported

Grammarly doesn’t offer support for languages other than English. There is also no option available for translation like Ginger.

Only One Account for Premium

The Grammarly Premium account gives you only one license for use on up to five devices. It is an obstacle for people with multiple accounts for different purposes. Grammarly Premium is already expensive, so buying two licenses is not feasible for the majority.

Top 5 Free Grammarly Alternatives 2021

Grammarly stands out as the most prominent and well-received tool when you compare all popular digital writing assistants. It has been endorsed and appreciated by countless publishers and writers. Grammarly has become a top product in the digital writing industry with its robust marketing and significant NLP and AI improvements.

Grammarly Inc. has secured enough funding as of late 2019 to improve its natural language learning database to enhance its AI-based application further. Keeping all this in mind, it is evident that Grammarly is dominating the market. Still, there are a few products that come close for one reason or the other. Here are the top 5 Grammarly alternatives in 2021:

ProWritingAid

Pros: Long-Form Writing (Books, etc.), Writing Insights, Separate Checking of Issues, MS Word Add-in, Efficient Browser Extension

Cons: Short-Form Writing, Fewer Errors Detected, Not for Amateurs, No Free Version

ProWritingAid is considered a worthy alternative to Grammarly (notably for long-form writing – books, etc.), but it falls far behind Grammarly for short-form writing.

ProWritingAid is accurate, feature-rich, and integrates well with apps and websites, but the interface is not as user-friendly as Grammarly’s. It also reveals fewer issues as Grammarly has advanced context-based grammar checking capabilities.

ProWritingAid offers better pricing and value for money (Premium is $60 per year, $70 with Plagiarism Checker), and it also has a Lifetime Plan. However, it doesn’t have a free plan like Grammarly. The Online Editor has no word limit, unlike Grammarly’s 60-pages or 100,000 character limit.

ProWritingAid provides many options/tabs to check for each issue separately, handy for longer articles or books. However, it is not as user-friendly for short writing pieces.

It also presents a better analysis of the whole document and provides a lot of information regarding your writing, which you can use to improve your writing style.

ProWritingAid has an easy-to-scroll-through panel at the right-side that contains corrections and suggestions, which you can use to see all issues without scrolling the entire document.

ProWritingAid has the following tabs to check for each issue separately:

Grammar
Spelling
Overused
Readability
Cliche
Sticky
Diction
All Repeats
Echoes
Thesaurus
Dialogue
Consistency
Pacing
Pronouns
Alliterations
Homonyms
Transition
Acronym

Ginger

Pros: Keeps Formatting, 60 Languages & Translation, Built-in Dictionary, Browser Extension, Free Version

Cons: Fewer Issues Detected, Fewer Insights, Interface is just OK, no MS Word plugin

Ginger is also a notable competitor of Grammarly. It has a free version, and it integrates well with different websites. However, it doesn’t have an MS Word plugin. It is also not as accessible due to its clunky interface.

Ginger is not as powerful as Grammarly, but it is still a decent alternative. Ginger’s annual subscription is $89.88 (cheaper than Grammarly’s).

Ginger keeps the original formatting of the text document, which is pleasant. It also has a Translator within the app that supports 60 languages. Also, there’s a built-in dictionary, which you can use to find alternatives to overused words.

WhiteSmoke

Pros: Cheap, Integrates with Platforms, Gimmicks – i.e., Templates, etc.

Cons: Interface is awful, Fewer Mistakes Caught

WhiteSmoke is cheap to use, but it has a horrible interface. It integrates with many platforms, but it is incomparable to an advanced tool like Grammarly. It has some useful gimmicks like templates for specific writing purposes, i.e., Sorry, Thank You, Condolences, etc.

The annual subscription of WhiteSmoke costs $79.99. However, it is not advanced enough to be considered better value for money.

Thesaurus Writing Tool

Pros: Free, Vocabulary suggestions on hovering the cursor over a word, Blog

Cons: Editor is dreadful to use, Ruins Formatting

Thesaurus Writing Tool is a free-to-use online text editor powered by Thesaurus.com. You can copy/paste or write directly in the Editor. It doesn’t retain the original formatting, which makes it a bit uncomfortable to use. Just click on the ‘Check for Grammar’ button, and it will work its magic. It also has a dedicated blog that teaches you how to write better.

The Thesaurus Writing Tool is unimpressive when checking grammatical errors, but it is highly potent in vocabulary suggestions. Its interface is simple but insufficient. Hover over any word, and it will show you a vocabulary card with a lot of synonyms. Clicking on any suggestion will replace the original term with the selected item. The replaced word gets a yellow underline. An undo option is available if you are not happy with your word selection.

Hemingway App

Pros: Free, Information about Text, Text Readability Score

Cons: Ruins Formatting, Fewer Mistakes Caught

Hemingway App is yet another incredible tool that is quite capable and straight-forward. It is convenient for analyzing your document as it scores the content based on its readability. It has a free web app and a paid desktop app. You can copy/paste into the online Editor or write directly, but it messes up the formatting.

Hemingway App identifies the use of passive voice, adverbs, and difficulty of reading. It recognizes long sentences – even the easy-to-read ones – as complex, which affects the document’s grade.

Final Verdict: Grammarly Review 2021

Using advanced NLP and AI, Grammarly free is hands-down the best and must-have writing, editing, and proofreading tool for everyone that checks for spelling and critical grammar mistakes. Easy to use, compatible with most popular products, and trusted by millions of users, Grammarly instantly elevates your writing everywhere; statuses, comments, emails, documents, tweets, you name it! Trying out the free version before upgrading to a premium plan also makes sense.

Grammarly Premium is a more robust and advanced tool with numerous amazing features like an advanced clarity checker, tone detector, and plagiarism checker. The Premium version is unparalleled when complemented with knowledge of the English language and some other tools. However, it is insufficient as a standalone tool because it can make slips (especially semantic ones).

I highly recommend Grammarly Premium to professionals (freelancers, writers, bloggers, authors, publishers, and editors) who require intensive use of the app. Similarly, Grammarly for Business is a good investment if your team does intensive writing. Non-intensive users should stick to the Free version as it suffices.

Aa one user said, “Grammarly Premium helps you sound like a pro, or at least helps you avoid looking like a fool!”

FAQs About Grammarly

Is Grammarly a good app?

Yes, Grammarly stands out among its competitors as it has advanced context-based grammar checking capabilities, thanks to its up-to-date natural language processing and artificial intelligence.

Is Grammarly Premium worth it?

Yes, for the most part. However, it is a tad expensive for many. It is suitable for professionals and businesses that have lots of writing needs. It identifies several advanced grammar issues that the Free version only counts. However, it is not a substitute for human proofreading as it can make linguistic mistakes that a human can easily find.

Is Grammarly supported in Google Docs?

It is in Beta at the moment. So, it should be available shortly. At the moment, it is imperfect as it only specifies the number of errors. You have to scroll the document to find those mistakes (underlined red) on your own. It has already started working in the comments, though.

Is Grammarly supported in Quora?

Yes, Grammarly works with Quora.

Is Grammarly supported in Medium?

Yes, Grammarly is available for Medium.

Can Grammarly replace a professional editor?

No, it can’t. Grammarly can make simple semantic mistakes because it doesn’t know the meaning of the written text, so it cannot replace a professional editor. It is only suitable for catching syntactic issues.

Is Grammarly supported in Microsoft Word?

Yes, a plugin is available. It is an efficient plugin as it gives similar options in Microsoft Word as it does in its online editor and desktop application. Grammarly is now available for both Windows and macOS versions of MS Word.

Is Grammarly available for Mac?

Yes, Grammarly’s desktop app is available for macOS. Grammarly is available for both Windows and macOS. Grammarly for MS Word is also available for Mac now.

Is Grammarly supported in WordPress?

Yes, it is supported. You can use Grammarly in WordPress via its browser extension.

Is Grammarly supported in Gmail?

Yes, it is. You can edit your email using the Grammarly browser extension within Gmail. However, it is not the best solution for lengthy content. For extended text, the Online Editor, the Desktop App, and the MS Word Add-in are better options.

Does Grammarly work offline?

No, it doesn’t. Grammarly uses its database to run the app, so an internet connection is necessary.

Does Grammarly help you improve your writing?

Yes. If you read the weekly stats, detailed performance stats PDF, and Grammarly Blog for grammar rules and writing tips and try to implement them in your writing, Grammarly can significantly improve your writing capabilities.

Is Grammarly Safe and Secure?

Yes, Grammarly is quite safe, as Google verifies it. Moreover, Grammarly is as secure as any other site that uses SSL/TLS encryption. It is also reliable for plagiarism checking as it doesn’t violate your privacy.

What is the Grammarly cancellation refund policy?

You can get your money back if you are not satisfied with the Premium subscription by contacting Grammarly support within ten days.

Is Grammarly a reliable checker?

Yes, Grammarly outperforms its competitors. Yet, it cannot surpass a professional human editor.

Is Grammarly available for Android/iOS?

Yes, it is. You can use the Grammarly Keyboard to edit your text for grammar and spelling errors by installing the Grammarly Keyboard app from the Play Store or the App Store. It works like the auto-correct feature. Grammarly is now available on iPad as well.

Check out Grammarly for yourself.

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29 mars 2021/par Service comm.

27 Exciting New Tools For Designers, March 2021

Actualités, Actualités

Looking for something new to get you excited about design work? This list is packed with all kinds of goodies to help you feel inspired and ready to work.

Here’s what new for designers this month.

Top Picks for March

Same Energy

Same Energy, in beta, is a visual search engine. You can search with a minimum number of words or an image. The website is designed to help you find art, photography, decoration ideas, and practically anything. It uses deep learning and algorithms to create images on the home page, and you can create feeds in the same manner. The coolest part of this tool is that it tries to match the visual and artistic style you ask for with image mood and objects.

SVG Repo

SVG Repo is a collection of more than 300,000 SVG vectors and icons that you can download and use in projects for free (even commercial use). The site has a powerful search tool to help you find the right image, and the platform is designed so that you can contribute.

Penpot

Penpot is an open-source design and prototyping platform for cross-domain teams. It is a web-based tool that isn’t dependent on any operating system and works with open web standards. It’s designed to be zippy and interactive so your team can work fast.

Directual

Directual is a no-code platform for building scalable apps using a visual interface. (Perfect for designers with less development experience.) It includes integrations with other popular tools and is free to use while figuring out how the app works and how you can make it fit your business goals.

HTML Boilerplates

HTML Boilerplates helps you start web projects by generating a custom HTML boilerplate that you can download. Just choose the elements you want to include and then copy and paste the code into your editor.

6 Productivity Boosters

Rows

Rows is a spreadsheet tool with built-in web integrations that’s made for team collaboration. It works with other tools you already use, such as Google Analytics, Twitter, LinkedIn, Mailchimp, and so many others. Without scripts, you can use it to automate workflows, analyze data, share dashboards, and build forms and tools that make work simpler.

Form.Taxi

Form.taxi is a premium web-based form tool. You can create web forms without code or programming and connect them to your website. The tool then stores information, filters for spam, and notifies you of form submissions.

Verbz

Verbz is a voice productivity app that allows you to create notes, assign tasks, make announcements, run standups, or chat. Talk or type, listen or read. It works as your own voice assistant for teams. It’s available in Beta from the App Store, and there’s a waitlist for Android users.

Flameshot

Flameshot is a tool for grabbing screenshots. It has a customizable appearance, is easy to use, and lets you draw and edit screenshots as you work.

Kitemaker

Kitemaker is a collaboration tool for development processes. It can help you keep track of everything from tools such as Slack, Discord, Figma, and Github in one place. It helps you structure projects and keep discussions about work moving forward in one place.

This Code Works

This Code Works is a place to save code snippets that work for when you need them again. You can group and organize snippets and share with others. You might think of it as the “Pinterest of code.”

3 Icons and User Interface Elements

Sensa Emoji

Sensa Emoji is a collection of common emoji icons that you can use in your materials. Every element is fully vector and free to use.

Google Fonts Icons

Google Fonts now supports icons, starting with Material Icons. Choose between outlined, filled, rounded, sharp, or two-tone options in the open-source library.

Toolbox Neumorphism Generator

Toolbox Neumorphism Generator is a design tool that helps developers to generate CSS in the soft UI /neomorphism style for the elements with real-time output.

3 Tutorials and Demos

An Interactive Guide to CSS Transitions

An Interactive Guide to CSS Transitions explains everything you need to know about this great animation tool for website designers. This tutorial digs in with code and examples to help you create more polished animations and is designed for anyone from beginners to experienced designers with some pro tips throughout.

About Us Pop-Out Effect

The About Us Pop-Out Effect adds a special element to any team or contact page with a nifty pop animation. Each person seems to lift out of the circle frame in this pen by Mikael Ainalem.

Interactive Particles Text Create with Three.js

Interactive Particles Text Create with Three.js is a web element you could play with all day. Text shifts into particles and follows mouse movement in a fluid motion in the pen by Ricardo Sanprieto.

10 Fresh Fonts and Text Tools

Bitmap Fonts

Bitmap Fonts is a collection of various bitmap typefaces all pulled and stored in a single location. This is the perfect solution if you are looking for a bitmap option.

Uniwidth Typefaces

Uniwidth Typefaces for Interface Design is another collection of fonts for a specific purpose – here universal widths for interface design. Uniwidth fonts are proportionally-spaced typefaces where every character occupies the same space across different cuts or weights. This is both a tutorial on the type style as well as font collection.

Bubble Lemon

Bubble Lemon is a typeface for projects with a childlike feel. With an outline and regular style, the thick bubble letters look like some of the sketches you may have done in grade school.

Core Font

Core Font is an open-source project with a funky and modern style. It has a full upper- and lower-case character set, numerals, and a few punctuation marks.

GHEA Aram

GHEA Aram is a superfamily with a Central European flair, according to the type designer. The premium typeface includes everything from light to black italic and even some Armenian ligatures.

Make Wonderful Moments Duo

Make Wonderful Moments Duo is a script and sans serif font pair with a lighthearted feel and highly readable character set. The regular (sans serif) only has uppercase characters.

Ribheud

Ribheud is a slab-style display font with a heavy look and strong presence. What makes it interesting is the left-outline/shadow on each character.

Rose Knight

Rose Knight has an old-style feel that can take on multiple moods, depending on supporting design elements. All of the characters are uppercase with alternates. It could make a fun branding option.

The Glester

The Glester is a beautiful premium typeface in a calligraphic style. The most interesting element of this typeface is all of the extra decorations that allow you to change individual characters (380 glyph alternates).

Velatus

Velatus is a vintage-style typeface with plenty of swashes and flourishes that make it unique. It comes with 157 characters and 96 glyphs.

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8 mars 2021/par Service comm.