• Discovery & Audit – ran NewRelic & Query Monitor to pinpoint slow DB calls, Ajax spikes, giant Divi CSS blocks.

• Plugin Rationalisation – mapped every feature → plugin, killed 21 redundancies (Instagram feeds, slider duplicates, legacy builders).

• MU‑Plugin Suite – moved helper code into four namespaced MU‑plugins (Helpers, Performance, Video‑Embed, Dynamic Forms) for single‑point updates.

• Staging Pipeline – GitLab flow with per‑branch WPEngine staging. Prime Mover migrates subsites in ~90 s for QA.

• Pilot Rollout – UpNorthNews first; held for 14 days of Google Sc bot validation; then batch‑migrated remaining nine sites.

• Iterate / Monitor – daily GTMetrix diff to #web‑ops Slack; synthetic CWV via Treo; ticket backlog in Asana.

• Rank Math Network Templates – one click spins up sitemap, BreadcrumbList schema, and meta‑box presets for each new sub‑site.

• Structured Data for Authors – MU‑plugin injects sameAs social links and head‑shot ImageObject.

• SmartNews & Apple News Feeds – JB Feed Enhancements adds SmartFormat blocks; article pick‑up ↑ 18 %.

• 404 → 301 Automation – 404 Solution auto‑redirect + weekly slack digest => orphan pages down 72 %.

• Dynamic Right Rail – widget queries posts sharing the same primary category; falls back to state politics if none.

• Content Gates – Hard gate for election guides, scroll soft‑gate for food/feature stories; Sailthru IDs auto‑appended as UTM.

• Map/List Templates – Editors select “Polling Place Map” CPT, upload CSV → WP Go Maps renders, schema = CivicPollingStation.

• Forms – Courier Dynamic Forms plugin pipes Sailthru + Strive SMS; GDPR‑ready.

• Critical CSS inlined via Per‑Site build script (Lightning CSS)

• Lazy‑import fonts – EasyFonts converts Google link to local woff2; font-display:swap

• CLS fixes – reserved ad slots + explicit height for YouTube iframes

• Menu – pure‑CSS burger, 0 JS until first interaction (saves 22 kB)

Courier Newsroom operates 10 state-focused news sites on a WordPress Multisite stack: