ActivityPub for WordPress

Tag: Discoverability

  • Discover more of the Fediverse with tags.pub

    One of the best things about the Fediverse is that conversations happen everywhere, across Mastodon, WordPress, Pixelfed, and dozens of other platforms. One of the trickiest things about the Fediverse is finding those conversations in the first place.

    Wapuu in a space suit floats through a colorful nebula, reaching out to catch glowing hashtag symbols drifting like stars across a wide cosmic background.

    Hashtags have always been the Fediverse’s answer to discovery. But because the network is decentralized, the posts you see for any given hashtag depend on which servers yours already knows about. If nobody on your server follows someone who posted about #WordPressFederation, you’ll never see that post, even though it’s public and out there.

    tags.pub changes that.

    What Is tags.pub?

    tags.pub is a global hashtag server built by the Social Web Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to growing the open social web, and an organization Automattic is proud to partner with.

    The idea is simple: tags.pub collects publicly posted content from across the Fediverse and redistributes it based on hashtags. When you follow a hashtag account like @photography@tags.pub, you’ll see posts tagged #photography from servers your instance might never have heard of. It fills in the gaps that decentralization naturally creates.

    The project is open source (AGPL-3.0), privacy-conscious, it doesn’t store post content, images, or media, and respects user controls like #NoTagsPub and #NoBots opt-outs.

    How It Works on WordPress.com

    If you’re running a WordPress.com site with the ActivityPub plugin, there’s nothing to configure. tags.pub already works out of the box. Your public posts and their hashtags are discoverable across the Fediverse through tags.pub, and you can follow hashtag accounts from your Following page.

    Connecting a Self-Hosted WordPress Site

    For self-hosted WordPress sites, head to Settings → ActivityPub → Settings and scroll to the Relay section. Add one of these URLs:

    • Inbox: https://tags.pub/user/_____relay_____/inbox
    • Shared Inbox: https://tags.pub/shared/inbox
    A screenshot of the Relay-Settings of the ActivityPub plugin.

    This creates a one-way connection where your server sends public posts to tags.pub for hashtag distribution, and your posts become part of the global hashtag network.

    Following Hashtags

    Once connected, you can also follow specific hashtags by searching for them as accounts. For example, to follow #WordPress posts from across the entire Fediverse, follow:

    @wordpress@tags.pub

    Any publicly tagged post that reaches tags.pub will be boosted by that account into your timeline. When posts are edited or deleted, tags.pub updates accordingly.

    Privacy and Control

    tags.pub is designed with user agency in mind:

    • Opt out anytime by adding #NoTagsPub or #NoBots to your bio, your posts won’t be boosted.
    • Block the domain entirely if you prefer not to interact with the service at all.
    • No content storage, tags.pub doesn’t archive your posts, images, or media. It only maintains boost records.
    • Respects blocks, if someone blocks tags.pub, their content stays out.

    A Step Toward Better Discovery

    Discoverability is one of the areas we’ve identified on our 2026 roadmap as a key challenge, and services like tags.pub are exactly the kind of infrastructure that helps solve it. By connecting WordPress sites to a global hashtag network, your posts can reach people who care about the same topics, even if they’ve never heard of your blog before.

    If you’re already using ActivityPub for WordPress, connecting to tags.pub takes less than a minute. Give it a try and let us know how it works for you. Have you noticed more engagement from the wider Fediverse? We’d love to hear about your experience.

  • Roadmap 2026 — Charting the stars of the open social web

    ActivityPub and the Fediverse had a great year in 2025. With that foundation in place, our 2026 roadmap is all about what comes next: better discoverability, richer interactions, and a smoother experience across the open social web.

    Astronaut Wapuu, the yellow WordPress mascot in a dark blue space suit, floats in a starry space scene while holding a glowing cosmic map filled with planets, constellations, and orbital paths.

    As always, this roadmap is not set in stone. Priorities may shift based on community feedback, WordPress developments, and changes across the wider Fediverse. But it should give you a clear sense of where we’re heading this year.

    Increase Findability and Reach

    One of the main themes for 2026 is discoverability. We want WordPress sites to be easier to find, follow, and recommend across the Fediverse.

    FASP Support

    We plan to implement support for Fediverse Auxiliary Service Providers (FASPs).

    FASPs are independent services that enhance Fediverse servers with features such as cross-instance search, recommendations, and spam detection. By integrating with these services, WordPress content can appear in Fediverse discovery tools, making it easier for people to find and follow WordPress blogs.

    This work is already in progress, and you can follow the implementation here:

    https://github.com/Automattic/wordpress-activitypub/pull/2312

    Starter Packs

    Starter Packs are shareable collections of recommended accounts designed to help people discover communities more easily.

    They address the “empty feed problem” by giving new users curated lists of accounts to follow. This makes it easier to find interesting voices and become part of the network more quickly.

    Reader v2

    The next phase of the Reader will focus on deeper interaction and a more complete social experience.

    A screenshot showing the current beta version of the reader.

    Reactions

    We plan to show likes, boosts, and comments directly in the Reader view, so users can see how posts are being received across the network.

    Interactions

    Users will be able to interact with Fediverse content directly from the Reader — including:

    • Commenting on posts
    • Liking posts
    • Boosting posts

    This will make the Reader a fully interactive space, not just a passive timeline.

    Activity Stream

    We’ll introduce an Activity Stream to notify users about important requests and events, such as:

    • Follow requests
    • Starter Pack invitations
    • Other actions that require approval

    Users will be able to accept or decline these directly from the interface.

    Reply Context Import

    We also plan to improve how conversation threads are displayed.

    By parsing reply collections and context from incoming posts, the Reader will be able to fill in missing parts of a discussion, even when some replies were created before the post was indexed. This will make threads feel more complete and easier to follow.

    Direct Messages

    As part of the evolving Reader experience, we’re planning an initial version of Direct Messages.

    This will start as a proof of concept, helping us explore the technical challenges while already delivering a useful and frequently requested feature. Over time, we’ll iterate based on real-world usage and feedback.

    Client-to-Server API

    In addition to server-to-server federation, ActivityPub also defines a Client-to-Server (C2S) API:

    This API is primarily intended for mobile apps and other clients, allowing them to publish content directly to a server.

    For WordPress, this could:

    • Enable mobile or third-party clients
    • Allow WordPress to act as a proxy for other publishing tools
    • Open new workflows for federated content

    The first step will be enabling POST requests to the Outbox endpoint using application passwords.

    This is currently being worked on, and you can track the implementation here:

    https://github.com/Automattic/wordpress-activitypub/pull/2851

    Ongoing Improvements and Interoperability

    Alongside these larger initiatives, we’ll continue working on a wide range of improvements across the plugin.

    A key focus is better interoperability with the broader WordPress ecosystem. We want it to be easier for other plugins to integrate with the Fediverse, so that features like comments, reactions, events, and other content types can work seamlessly across federated networks.

    We’re also continuing to refine the experience for long-form content. WordPress is known for blogging and publishing, and we want to make sure that articles, threads, and conversations feel natural and readable across the Fediverse.

    In addition, we’ll experiment with smaller features and fun ideas, such as activity statistics and other lightweight insights, to help site owners better understand their reach and interactions.

    A dashboard widget that presents an initial Fediverse Stats overview, including monthly comparisons, engagement trends over time, and top supporters.

    These improvements may be smaller in scope than the major roadmap items, but together they play an important role in making WordPress a more capable and enjoyable citizen of the Fediverse.

    Staying Informed

    We’ll continue to share updates throughout the year.

    Each release will include posts about new features and improvements. For larger initiatives, like Reader v2 or Direct Messages, we’ll publish deeper updates as the work evolves.

    As always, your feedback helps shape the future of the plugin and the growing WordPress Fediverse community.

    If you have thoughts or ideas, we’d love to hear them in the comments. 🚀