Author: Princeton University WordPress

For all sites on our Princeton University WordPress platform, a footer will be added on April 11 to include a link to a University statement on diversity and non-discrimination. The University statement reflects our institution’s approach to diversity and non-discrimination. It has been recommended by the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity that this statement be linked from all University websites so there is no ambiguity about the institution’s position.

Website Lifecycle Management for WordPress

Web Development Services (WDS) is rolling out a feature on April 14, 2025, that will automatically email website owners when their websites no longer meet our criteria for continuing support. The criteria include no edits for one year. The email will ask the website owner to affirm whether they want to keep the website, and it will prompt them to log in. This effort ensures that we are not running websites that are no longer in use and helps prompt people to keep their content up to date.

If a site has had one year of inactivity, a site admin may see the yes/no dialog on the Site Confirmation page in the WordPress admin dashboard. They might also see that they or another site admin has already confirmed “yes or no” as to whether they would like to keep their site for another year. A “yes” confirmation will reset after an additional year of inactivity.

Site admins can contact webservices@princeton.edu if they would like to amend a previous confirmation.

Version 2 of the Editoria11y Accessibility Checker is now available for WordPress, and site admins on our managed WordPress platform can activate it from their site's dashboard.

For all newly provisioned WordPress sites, we turn on Editoria11y by default. At some point in the future, we plan to activate this plugin across all sites on our platform.

Editoria11y (pronounced "editorially") is an accessibility quality assurance tool that is automatic, unobtrusive, and seamless – like a spellchecker.

The new version of includes a significant redesign of the tips and main panel, and it includes full live checking.

Created by John Jameson, Princeton University's Digital Accessibility Developer, Editoria11y was previously only available as a module for the Drupal web content management system. Editoria11y is installed on over 2,700 Drupal sites around the world, and it is a standard feature of the Drupal-powered Princeton Site Builder. One reviewer called Editoria11y "The Best Drupal Accessibility Checker for Content Authors…"

The latest major update to WordPress, version 6.4, is now installed on our multisite network.

You can preview some of the new features in the following video.

This release also comes with the new Twenty Twenty-Four theme, which leverages the full-site block editor and includes a wide selection of templates and patterns.

Update: The scheduled upgrade to PHP 8.1 was successful. If you encounter any issues, please contact webservices@princeton.edu.

We have scheduled the upgrade for our managed WordPress platform to PHP 8.1 on Tuesday, May 2, 2023. This is a major upgrade from PHP 7, with some significant compatibility issues with older plugins and themes.

PHP 7 is officially unsupported by the PHP community, but our hosting partner continues to provide extended long-term support for this older version.

We have been testing extensively for a few months, and we are confident that most issues are resolved. However, site owners may need to contact webservices@princeton.edu if they experience any issues after the PHP upgrade.

Our managed hosting service includes the basic set up and support of WordPress sites that support the mission of the University, including sites for officially-recognized student groups. Faculty, staff, undergraduates, and graduate students are invited to use the service.

How to Request a Site

If you can't find what you are looking for, send an email to wordpress@princeton.edu or use the Princeton Service Portal.

OIT’s Web Development Services group administers the managed hosting environment, powered by WordPress.