There are more than fifty million published WordPress websites on the internet. All Fortune 500 companies prefer WordPress infrastructure for their daily blog content sharing. On the other hand, some people talk about the disadvantages of WordPress. Among so many different ideas, it is difficult to understand which projects are suitable for WordPress and which are not.
All Fortune 500 companies prefer WP infrastructure for their daily blog posts. So do they use the same infrastructure for their websites?
WordPress is a content management system that offers paid and free themes, and allows you to do almost anything with thousands of paid and free plugins. It has come a long way from where it started years ago ...
There's virtually no limit to what you can do with WordPress. Even if you do not have a very advanced software background, there are thousands of plugins that you can integrate into your site by following the directions. Although this may seem like an advantage, it also has disadvantages.
In the years when the internet started gaining popularity, it was thought that every person would own a website. All digital enthusiasts know the rel "nofollow" pattern. In the first versions, codes such as "follow" could be added to this pattern to indicate that it was the site of your mother, father, sibling. Then, when social media was invented, this side was neglected. WordPress was a structure developed at that time so that anyone could easily own a website. A content management system where you can share blog posts, edit, delete, categorize these blog posts over a ready system… Its first aim is to be a content sharing tool to the extent allowed by our Facebook profile today. It then spread and reached very large audiences.
It creates a WordPress-based marketplace that reaches such a wide audience. Today it is possible to earn money by selling themes or plugins for WordPress. Its ability to create a market made it even more widespread.
If you lack software knowledge and want to create a website for yourself, the most popular option is WordPress. 50 million website owners cannot be wrong. Free themes have many advantages such as plugins… Then let's talk about the disadvantages.
1. Add-ons
As a content management system, WordPress offers thousands of plugin options to organize content on your site. Want to add a dropdown menu to your page? It is possible to find more than one free plugin for this. Although these plugins help making your website look more personal and private, you take a risk with every plugin you install.
Anyone with sufficient knowledge can write and publish a plugin for WP. For this reason, the security and quality of the plugins are open to discussion. If the add-ons are not working properly, it will be difficult to get support. Also, since the plugins are made by different people, there is no guarantee that they will work with eachother without any problems. While one plugin runs smoothly on your site, another plugin can mess things up.
2. Software Updates
WordPress has regular software updates to keep its platform working properly for its users. These usually need to be done often, sometimes every month. The problem with these updates is that they can cause issues with the theme you use on your site or break your plugins as they become obsolete and no longer compatible with new updates. Is it really worth it?
3. SEO
Search engine optimization isn't impossible on your WordPress site, it's just more difficult - especially if you don't know what you're doing. There are many plugins that can help with SEO, but there are still dangers associated with plugins, so if you're not picky, you might run into a bigger problem. Many factors play a role in search engine rankings, and if you are not aware of all of them when creating your website, you can choose a theme or plugin that actually works against you.
4. Unlimited Login
The default setting for a WordPress website is to allow an unlimited number of login attempts. This is dangerous from a security perspective, because a small virus can compromise your site. Although it may not be possible to guess and enter your password, it will tire your server and negatively affect your site performance.
5. Malicious Software
Because WordPress is a very common content management system, it is a logical structure for hackers to search openly. A vulnerability in a theme immediately spreads among those involved and endangers thousands of users using the theme. The fact that the admin panel, comment areas and rating buttons are known by too many people for WP is a disadvantage. You may have to deal with small malware bots that only find comment fields of WordPress sites, write spam comments, and constantly try passwords in the admin panel.
6. Easy Target
It's a great feeling to make your own website. A personalized design for you… No matter how different the sites look on the front, they are all the same on the back. A vulnerability found for a theme puts all users of that theme at risk. A malicious hacker who will be successful in one of the plugins you use will be able to reach all the sites that use that plugin. A plugin written in the UK will be hacked by a software developer in Russia, and your site will fall victim to this war.
7. Responsive Design
Most of the Wordpress theme options claim to work with full performance on different screens. Although WP has made all its well-intentioned efforts in this regard, it is obvious that it still has difficulty adapting to the screens. Users on your site may be faced with difficult designs that have failed to adapt on different screens.
8. Themes
People love the WordPress infrastructure because of the themes it provides. You may think you've found a great way to express yourself with thousands of different themes to choose from. Actually, this is not the case. Themes are often offered for sale through marketplaces. As in every market, the best selling product breeds lots of imitations in the marketplace. If you do not pay attention, you may notice that you have a design that looks like it is the same site as the others after you are done. Remember the counter on the home page of digital agency websites; X Number of Happy Customers, X Number of Completed Projects, X Cups of Coffee… I think you understand…
To Conclude, What Should We Do?
- Avoid using WordPress on web projects where you expect high traffic.
- Using WordPress in web structures where the content will be interactive, change according to the user and / or filtered can make your job difficult.
- WP can be challenging for you with low text density, video and image heavy structures.
- If you want to keep a journal or publish textual content on a topic, WordPress will do the trick.
- Make sure to make regular backups of your site.
- Do not store any valuable data in the WP infrastructure.
- Do what Fortune 500 companies do. Use WordPress for custom software, daily blogging and news content for your business and business assets.
