Wordpress Web Sites

Wordpress and why we don't recommend it! Wordpress and why we don't recommend it!

And why we don't recommend them

There is an old saying, 'you get what you pay for' and Wordpres is 'open source' or free.

Wordpress sites are very popular but the Wordpress architecture more often than not results in pages which are slow to load. As Google is very focussed these days on the user experience, particularly in relation to page load speed, this will have a negative effect on the rankings for Wordpress sites in the Google search results pages.

Also, Wordpress, as 'open source' software, does not have a single central point of responsibility for support and the user is responsible for installing updates and resolving conflicts with plugins.

And finally, as Wordpress is both 'open source' and very popular, it is a very oftentimes the target of hackers.

Wordpress history & architecture

Wordpress was originally developed as an open source platform for the creation of 'blogs' when blogs were the 'flavour of the month' in terms of being able to get good rankings in Google.

As an open source platform, ie. it is free, it also became a very popular platform to use to teach web site development. So as a result, there are a lot of graduates and startup web development businesses who know and used Wordpress.

Then, as blogs became less relevant to influence Google rankings, but there were a lot of sites out there using this patform, people developed 'plugins' to handle all sorts of requirements such as shopping carts, form management, banners, photo galleries, ...

And this is where a key issue arises. Each 'plugin' typically adds external javascript and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) files to support the function and appearance of the plugin. This oftentimes results in sites with 10-20 external javascript files and a similar number of CSS files.

The problem arises because external files need to be loaded with the content of the page. Loading an external file not only requires network bandwidth but there is 'hand-shaking' overhead associated with each file, further slowing down the loading and rendering of the page for the end user.

Many studies have shown that slow to load web pages are the number one issue web users have at this time and Google does penalise sites which are slow to load. Google recently announced this issue, of page load speed, will be further emphasised in relation to mobile users (User Bounce Rate and Page Load Time). Given mobile use is increasing and is nearly 50% of all online traffic now, this is more and more important if you want to rank well in Google search results.

Google Page Speed Insights

Google even provides a tool, Google Page Speed Insights, which rates the page load time for a page on a web site and recommendations as to how to improve this metric.

In terms of Wordpress sites, due to the plugin architecture, when we did a review of a random group of web sites against Wordpress web sites, we found:

Wordpress sites had a mobile page load speed score of 47 versus other sites average of 67, and
Wordpress sites had a desktop page load speed score of 65 versus other sites average of 81.

We strongly recommend you check your web sites performance using the Google Page Speed Insights tool.

Use Google page Speed insights to check you web site page load speed

Support & Maintenance Security

Wordpress does not have a single point of responsibility or someone who can fix issues. So, if you have a problem with your web site, who do you turn to? Ghostbusters can't help here! This is why we recommend using a platform provided by and supported by large IT Companines such as Adobe.

Wordpress regularly issue updates (for security enhancements, bug fixes and additional function). You, as the user of the software, are responsible for implementing these updates and resolving any incompatibilites with any plugins you may have implemented. For most business owners, this is not feasible so they must pay their developer or hosting company to provide these services.

As Wordpress updates come every couple of months, this can result in significant costs and the likelihood of problems with new versions and/or imcompatibilites is quite high. We see it often.

Web Site Security & Hackers

And then there is the ever present likelihood of hackers compromising your site.

As Wordpress is free and quite popular, it is a great target for hackers. They can get and play with the software at no expense and they know that when they find a sucurity loop-hole, they have a large potential audience.

We have had a regular stream of new clients come to us pleading for help when their web site has been hacked ... and oftentimes their web site & emails then get suspended by their hosting company.

Would losing your web site and/or emails for a few days have any impact on your business???

Summary

In essence, Wordpress sites can cost you and your online business much, much more than investing in a platform which is provided by and supported by a large IT company such as Adobe.

By spending a little, you can save a lot.

More information?

So if you have a Wordpress web site and need help or you just want more information regarding our web site development services, please feel free to call us on 0419 501 726, send an email to info at ribon.com.au or use our contact form on our Contact page to send us an inquiry.

Joomla! Debug Console

Session

Profile Information

Memory Usage

Database Queries