Drupal Showcase

Mike Gifford highlights the opportunity for the Drupal community to use LinkedIn to grow visibility beyond its core audience. With momentum from DrupalCon Atlanta and renewed interest in AI and the open web, Drupal is evolving—but public perception hasn’t caught up. By actively engaging with Drupal content, promoting community wins, and sharing updates using relevant tags and mentions, community members can help shape a stronger, more accurate narrative about what Drupal delivers today. This post outlines why LinkedIn matters now and how it can help Drupal gain the recognition it deserves.

At DrupalCon Portland 2025, the Drupal Community Working Group announced Kristen Pol as this year’s recipient of the Aaron Winborn Award. Named after long-time contributor Aaron Winborn, this award recognizes someone who embodies kindness, integrity, and an above and beyond commitment to the Drupal community.

About Kristen Pol

Kristen has been a huge part of the Drupal community for years, making an impact through her work in accessibility, knowledge sharing, mentorship, and community support. She’s the track lead for the Experience Builder demo design system and helps shape how people will interact with the DrupalCMS project.

Kristen has a long history of being a proactive contributor in the community. She took on big challenges as one of the Drupal 8 Multilingual Initiative leaders, and more recently as a lead in major version contrib porting efforts (organizing data tracking and porting events) as well as in Drupal CMS (as lead of the demo design system).

If you’ve been to a Drupal event, chances are you’ve seen Kristen, either on a stage or in a hallway, always helping someone. And she does it with a level of professionalism that sets the bar for all of us. She authored the Drupal 7 multilingual book, which has helped countless people navigate one of the trickier aspects of Drupal site building.

The CWG reached out to all nominees, shared the community nominations, and thanked them for their contributions to the community.

About the Aaron Winborn Award

Named in honor of Aaron Winborn, a dedicated Drupal contributor who lost his battle with ALS in 2015, this award recognizes someone who, like Aaron, has made a lasting impact on the community.

Previous winners include Cathy Theys, Gabór Hojtsy, Nikki Stevens, Kevin Thull, Leslie Glynn, Baddý Breidert, AmyJune Hineline, Angie Byron, Randy Fay, and Mike Anello. The CWG Conflict Resolution Team and past winners select the recipient based on nominations from the community. 

Nominations for next year’s Aaron Winborn Award will open in early 2026. Until then, let’s take a moment to celebrate Kristen Pol and everything she does for Drupal.

Congratulations, Kristen!

File attachments:  Kristen_Pol_AaronWinbornAward.jpg

Drupal 7 EOL Has Passed, But Many Sites Remain

It has been over two months since Drupal 7 reached end-of-life (EOL) on 5 January 2025. Official support and security updates have ceased, yet thousands of organizations, businesses, and government agencies continue to rely on Drupal 7 to power critical websites.

For many, the transition to a newer platform has been delayed due to budget constraints, resource limitations, or the complexity of migrating custom-built Drupal 7 applications. With no further security updates, the urgency to find a solution is growing.

The Current Landscape for Drupal 7 Sites

The end of official Drupal 7 support means:

• No more security patches – Any future vulnerabilities discovered will not be addressed by the Drupal Security Team.
• Compliance challenges – Organizations subject to HIPAA, PCI-DSS, FedRAMP, and other regulatory frameworks may struggle to maintain compliance.
• Third-party module risks – All contributed modules depended on by Drupal 7 sites are also no longer supported, increasing the potential for security gaps.

What Are the Options for Drupal 7 Users?

Organizations still running Drupal 7 have a few paths forward:

1. Migrate to a New Platform

Migrating to Drupal 10 is the ideal long-term solution. However, for many organizations, this is a complex and time-intensive process that cannot happen overnight.

2. Lock Down and Minimize Risk

Some organizations attempt to reduce attack surfaces by limiting access to their Drupal 7 sites, disabling unnecessary features, or moving behind firewalls. However, this does not eliminate security risks, particularly for sites that remain publicly accessible.

3. Extend Drupal 7 Support with HeroDevs

For organizations that cannot migrate immediately but need continued security updates and compliance assurances, HeroDevs’ Drupal 7 Never-Ending Support (NES) provides an effective solution.

How HeroDevs' Drupal 7 NES Keeps Sites Secure

HeroDevs offers ongoing security updates for Drupal 7, ensuring that critical vulnerabilities are patched—even though official support has ended. With Drupal 7 NES, organizations can:

• Receive security updates for newly discovered vulnerabilities.
• Maintain compliance with security frameworks such as HIPAA and PCI-DSS.
• Avoid rushed migrations and plan transitions on their own timeline.
• Ensure stability without disrupting existing functionality.

Next Steps for Drupal 7 Users

The EOL deadline has passed, and unsupported Drupal 7 sites face growing security and compliance risks. If your organization is still running Drupal 7, it is time to take action.

HeroDevs’ Drupal 7 NES provides a seamless, secure solution while you plan your migration. Don’t leave your site vulnerable—contact us today to learn how we can help.

A year ago, Dries Buytaert set his sights on the stars — quite literally. Announcing the Starshot Initiative at DrupalCon Portland 2024, he likened the project to the historic Apollo 11 Moonshot, leaving the audience both awestruck and inspired.

 

From flexible design and cost-effectiveness to simple content management and robust security, learn how Drupal helps organizations focus on their mission and connect with their communities.

Drupal SEO in 2025: Modules and Best Practices Editor Tue, 04/01/2025 - 10:04

Effective integration with cloud services can significantly enhance the success of your Drupal-based website. Drupal is a powerful content management system, particularly when it comes to leveraging cloud technology. 
Our Golems team can confidently say that effective and competent integration with cloud services can bring colossal success to your Drupal-based website. This powerful platform has amazing capabilities for interacting with the most popular "clouds."

Want to see your web page content in rich results? Read this blog to learn all you need to know about applying Schema Markup or structured data. Additionally, find out how it can affect your SEO during a migration.