Zafriko.pl – A Polish Social and Entertainment Portal from 2000-2015

Zafriko.pl is an advanced project in my WordPress developer portfolio that I had the opportunity to develop as part of creating a modern social and entertainment platform. Between 2000 and 2015, this portal was one of the popular Polish websites, offering users a mix of humour, multimedia, and interactive features. My task was to design and implement a responsive WordPress-based site optimised for performance, scalability, and usability using the technologies available at that time. This project allowed me to showcase my technical expertise and skills in managing complex online systems.

The Purpose of the Site and Its Audience

The main goal of Zafriko.pl was to provide users with a platform to share humorous content, photos, and videos, along with social features such as comments and user profiles. The portal was aimed at a broad group of adult users in Poland who were seeking light entertainment and the opportunity to interact online in a dynamic, yet user-friendly environment.

Site Functionalities

• Content Publication: Users and editors could add articles, photos, and videos, implemented using native WordPress functions and custom post types.
• Interactivity: A comment system based on WordPress’s built-in module, optimised using Disqus for faster loading.
• Categories and Tags: Content organised into categories (e.g. humour, erotica), optimised for SEO using All in One SEO Pack.
• Multimedia Gallery: Photos and videos displayed in galleries, managed by the NextGEN Gallery plugin.
• Responsiveness: The site is fully mobile-friendly thanks to a theme built on Bootstrap 3.
• Rating System: Users can rate content via the WP-PostRatings plugin.

Challenges and Solutions

The implementation of the Zafriko.pl project required overcoming several challenges:

• Performance: A large amount of multimedia content slowed the site down – I used Cloudflare CDN and the W3 Total Cache plugin to cache the site.
• Security: I ensured the site’s stability through regular updates of WordPress (up to version 4.3 in 2015) and backups using BackupBuddy.
• SEO: I optimised the site for search engines using All in One SEO Pack and manually created an XML sitemap.
• Moderation: I implemented custom PHP scripts to filter content and manage comments.

Tools Used

WordPress 4.3, All in One SEO Pack, W3 Total Cache, WP Smush, NextGEN Gallery, Disqus, WP-PostRatings, BackupBuddy, Cloudflare, Sublime Text, Git, FileZilla, Google Analytics.

Site Maintenance

After launch, I provided full support: updates of WordPress and plugins, performance optimisation (using W3 Total Cache and Cloudflare), daily backups with BackupBuddy, and ongoing modifications based on the client’s needs.