Web Directory Free vs Smush – Image Optimization, Compression, Lazy Load, WebP & CDN

Web Directory Free turns WordPress into a searchable business directory. Sort listings into categories, locations and tags, build your own listing form, drop the directory onto any page with a shortcode, and let visitors search and browse – as a list, as cards, or on an interactive map. In the free edition you add and edit listings from the WordPress admin, and visitors browse, search and view them on the front end. Live demo: directory.salephpscripts.com What you can build A local business directory, a member or staff directory, a property or vehicle catalogue, a venue or event guide, a service-provider index, a classifieds board. Anything that is a list of places or things with fields, categories and a map. Organise your listings Categories and locations are hierarchical, so Country, Region, City nests the way you expect, and each level gets its own page. Tags for the cross-cutting labels that do not fit a hierarchy. Each category can carry its own marker icon and colour, so the map reads at a glance. Every category, location and tag page is a real URL with its own listings, search and map. Build the listing form yourself The form builder is drag and drop: arrange fields in rows and columns, and add your own on top of the built-in ones. Field types included: Title, Content, Excerpt Categories, Tags Address and Map Images & Videos – photos plus YouTube or Vimeo links, shown in one gallery with a lightbox Contact info, Phone, Email, Website URL Text/string, Number, Price List – as a dropdown, radio buttons or checkboxes Date-Time Opening hours File upload Every field can be placed independently on the listing card, the listing page, the search form and the map popup, so a field can be searchable without cluttering the card. Put the directory anywhere Each directory has a page builder: choose which elements appear on the home, category, location and listing pages, and in what order – search form, map, categories block, listings grid, slider, breadcrumbs, page title, buttons. If you would rather place things by hand, every element is also a shortcode: [webdirectory], [webdirectory-search], [webdirectory-map], [webdirectory-listings], [webdirectory-categories], [webdirectory-locations], [webdirectory-slider], [webdirectory-breadcrumbs], [webdirectory-listing-page] and more. They work in the block editor, in Elementor and in WPBakery. Maps Three engines: Google Maps, Mapbox and MapLibre with MapTiler tiles. Pick per site. Marker clustering, so thousands of listings stay usable. Per-category and per-listing marker icons. Rich popups built from the fields you chose, with the listing photo. A map sidebar that lists what is currently in view, and follows as the visitor pans. Radius search from an address, in miles or kilometres. Several layouts, including a full-width hero map and a sticky map beside the listings. Search that finds things The search form is built the same way as the listing form: drag in the elements you want. Keyword, categories, locations, address plus radius, rating. Any custom field you added becomes a filter – a price range, a number range, a date, a dropdown. A “More filters” separator to keep the visible form short. Sorting by newest, oldest, title, rating, random, or any numeric or date field you defined. Grid and list views, with the visitor’s choice remembered. Ratings Built in, no add-on: visitors rate a listing, the average shows on the card, the listing page and the map popup, and rating becomes a search filter and a sort option. Ratings can be switched off entirely. Bulk work CSV import and export for listings, including categories, locations, tags, custom fields, images and video links. Import creates or updates; export round-trips. A thumbnail regeneration tool for when you change image sizes. Housekeeping Colour palette controls so the directory matches your theme, with several presets. Email notifications with editable subjects, each one switchable. Google reCAPTCHA (v2 or v3) on the listing contact form. A diagnostics page that checks the directory is wired up correctly and tells you what to fix if it is not. An install wizard that creates the pages and the first directory for you. Translation ready: ships a POT file for any standard gettext or PO editor. Built for large directories: a dedicated search index and sort index keep tens of thousands of listings responsive, and both rebuild in the background. This plugin uses external services (map providers and, if you enable it, Google reCAPTCHA). See the External Services section below. What is not in the free edition Front-end submission. In the free edition listings are created and edited in the WordPress admin; visitors browse and search. The paid version adds front-end submission with membership plans, listing expiry and renewals, and WooCommerce checkout for paid, featured and upgraded listings. Get the full version: Web 2.0 Directory on CodeCanyon External Services Web Directory Free uses the following third-party services. Nothing is sent until you use the matching feature: Map providers (Google Maps, Mapbox, MapTiler / MapLibre) – when a map loads or an address is geocoded, the request (coordinates, the address being searched, and your API key/token) is sent to the provider you chose. See that provider’s terms and privacy policy. Google reCAPTCHA – when you turn it on for the contact form, the visitor’s interaction is checked with Google. See Google’s terms and privacy policy. The free edition does not contact the author’s servers: it gets updates through WordPress.org and does no license or “phone-home” checks.

Compress images, optimize images, and enable image lazy load automatically with the powerful Smush image optimizer to keep your WordPress site fast, without losing quality. Smush makes it easy to optimize images, compress images, and deliver images faster across your entire WordPress site. This all-in-one image optimizer automatically reduces image file sizes, enables image lazy load, and serves modern formats like WebP and AVIF, all without breaking image quality or adding extra work. Whether you’re running a blog, store, or portfolio, Smush helps you optimize images at scale and keep your site fast with a trusted WordPress image optimizer. Trusted by 1+ Million Sites | 4.8/5 Star Rating Get everything you need to optimize images and speed up your site. Smush works out of the box with no complicated setup – just install and let it handle the rest. Compress images without losing quality Reduce image file size automatically while keeping your images sharp and clear. Smush is an easy-to-use image optimizer which let’s you compress images using both lossless and lossy compression, giving you the best balance of quality and performance without extra work. You can also compress images outside the media library using Directory Smush, making it easy to optimize images stored in theme folders, plugins, or other directories on your server. Lazy load images for faster pages Enable image lazy load across your site so images load only when needed. This image optimizer improves initial page speed and creates a smoother experience for visitors without extra configuration. Serve WebP and AVIF images automatically (PRO) Convert images to WebP and AVIF and serve them automatically to supported browsers. Smush helps you optimize images using next-gen formats to reduce file size and improve load times across your WordPress site. Deliver images faster with an Image CDN (PRO) Serve images through a global image CDN to reduce latency and improve load times for visitors around the world. 119 global CDN servers Up to 500 GB of bandwidth Faster image delivery based on visitor location Improved performance for image-heavy and high-traffic sites Automatically resize and fix image dimensions (PRO) Eliminate common PageSpeed warnings and improve layout stability with automatic image sizing. Smush dynamically resizes images to perfectly fit their containers, regardless of original size, helping fix the “Properly size images” warning in Google PageSpeed Insights. It also automatically adds missing width and height attributes to your images, improving rendering speed and reducing layout shifts. This helps you meet the “Ensure images have explicit width and height” recommendation without any manual work. Optimize your entire site, automatically Smush works across your whole site as a powerful image optimizer to optimize images as you upload them and maintain performance over time without manual work. Optimize images automatically on upload Compress images in bulk or individually Works with your existing media library No need to re-upload images Enable image lazy load across your site Convert images to WebP and AVIF Deliver images with an integrated image CDN Automatically resize and serve correctly sized images Optimize images outside the media library with Directory Smush Built for performance Smush improves page speed and overall performance by reducing image weight and improving how images are delivered. Reduce page load times Improve user experience Better performance for image-heavy pages Supports image lazy load and preload images (PRO) for faster perceived performance Works with your existing setup Smush is built to work with your current WordPress setup, including popular themes, page builders, and plugins. Compatible with Gutenberg, Elementor, WPBakery, and more Works with WooCommerce stores No need to change your workflow Easy to enable and configure Designed to be simple You don’t need to be a performance expert to optimize images with Smush image optimizer. Works out of the box Simple settings when you need them No technical knowledge required Safe to use on any site Why choose Smush? There are plenty of image optimization plugins, but Smush focuses on making it easy to optimize images, compress images, and improve performance without complexity. As a leading WordPress image optimizer, Smush gives you powerful optimization tools without the technical hassle. Trusted by over 1 million WordPress users Built specifically for WordPress Regular updates and improvements Backed by the WPMU DEV team Get started in minutes Install Smush, activate it, and start to compress images, optimize images, and enable image lazy load right away. This easy-to-use image optimizer helps most sites see improvements immediately without changing how they upload or manage images. About Us WPMU DEV is a premium supplier of quality WordPress plugins, services and support. Learn more here: https://wpmudev.com/ Don’t forget to stay up to date on everything WordPress from the Internet’s number one resource: WPMU DEV Blog Hey, one more thing… we hope you enjoy our free offerings as much as we’ve loved making them for you! Contact and Credits Originally written by Alex Dunae at Dialect (dialect.ca, e-mail ‘alex’ at ‘dialect dot ca’), 2008-11.