Simple & Effective

This plugin provides a reliable way of scheduling posts on low-traffic sites where the standard method isn’t always accurate due to low visitor numbers and / or high update frequency.

The default WordPress method of scheduling posts is to check if something’s waiting to be published each time a visitor comes to the site, but if enough time has passed between visitors then items in the queue can get ‘stale’ and are flagged as ‘missed schedule’ instead of being published. That’s the case with my site, a blog for a local shooting club with a small number of daily visitors. We use a custom post type to post an update confirming when the range is open (often it’s not, due to bad weather) and another when it’s closed again, with the second of those updates being scheduled. Because all our members are at the range when it’s open we don’t get enough visits to trigger that second, scheduled update, so it was being missed a lot of the time.

Long story short: this plugin provides a simple and effective way of scheduling post updates when the standard WordPress mechanism isn’t enough. It’s very simple to use, doesn’t appear to impact bandwidth or analytics, and the developer is quick to respond when contacted – in my case with a feature request. Recommended.