For starters, WordPress has lots of advantages. This explains why it has become the most widely used blog platform on the internet along with its other version (Wordpress.com).
Other sites like Medium and Google’s Blogger are also known well in the blogosphere. Most popular platforms have an infinite amount of information about them available.
For WordPress, much of its information is true, but it ends up affecting the decisions of those who want to set up a blog or a site through the platform.
Despite its remarkable success in powering 28% of the web, its continuous evolving and advancement, WordPress still has its fair share of skeptics.
If you’re in the site building business, you’ve probably heard a number of myths babbled about WordPress.
Just
before you join the fray, let’s take a deeper dive in explaining the five most
common WordPress taboos and myths. Here, we clarify them and offer solutions on
how to overcome them.
WordPress is free
The fact that WordPress lets people sign up for free might seem counterproductive. However, basically, everything they offer does involve some kind of cost.
You’ve still got to contract a hosting service and trustworthy plugins that have costs involved. It is worth remembering that it’s always a good idea to analyze what free plugins are asking for in return.
On the other hand, setting up a website or e-commerce site on WordPress is still cheaper than a good number of the other alternatives available in the market.
WordPress is more likely to be hacked
Many people believe WordPress is the most easily hacked CMS. While there is some truth to this, it’s not the full story.
For instance, let’s consider Microsoft Windows. Because it’s the most commonly used operating system (OS), it has a significantly higher probability of getting more viruses and Trojan threats than other OSs.
However, we still stick to it because it’s user-friendly. Like Windows, WordPress is the most developer-friendly CMS, so we should stick with it.
Still, we should be aware of its security issues. Here are some preventive measures that you can take to safeguard your WordPress website.
Countermeasures to avoid hacking
- Regularly backup your WordPress site
Infrequent updates make your site more susceptible to hacks. I recommend backing up your site, at the very least, weekly.
There are many plugins that help prevent unauthorized access to your WordPress website. While backup plugins can be costly, they are definitely worth it.Alternatively; there are free plugins such as Ready. Additionally, some hosting providers allow users to download a backup although they are not usually a specific WordPress solution.
So, if you need to restore a backup created by the hosting provider, you need to be aware of what you are doing. For example, it is possible that you miss taking the database backup or you don’t know how to restore a backup cleanly.
If this turns out to be quite difficult to handle, you might consider seeking the services of a professional WordPress support company like WPFixs to restore the installation for you, fix bugs and update your website.
These services take care of security and automatically update WordPress and generate backups for your site. By choosing a managed WordPress solution, you can rest assured your site will be safe, allowing you to focus on managing your site’s content and features.
Also, by using plugins, you can easily take the backups, schedule them and with only a few clicks, restore them whenever necessary.
- Never use the admin name
Never use admin as your username as it signals an easy path for hackers. Do not worry if you’ve already selected admin as your username during the installation process because you can easily change it.
The simplest way to do this is to create another user and give her admin permission. After a successful login with the new username, delete the old one.
If you don’t want to create a new username, you can change admin privileges directly. That being said, keeps in mind that directly editing the database is dangerous because it’s very easy to make a mistake and lose a lot of data.
You want to consider using a plugin such as Limit Login Attempts as well. This plugin enables you to limit the number of login attempts and also ban an IP after a certain number of failed login attempts.
WordPress has no support
A typical software company works as follows. You have a need. You seek out a reputable company who in turn offer you software that you pay for. If you experience problems using their software, you contact their support team and you’re sorted out.
When it comes to WordPress, no single company or person owns the platform, nobody pays to use it and when you’re stuck, well, you’re stuck. How wrong!
WordPress has a great community of developers, designers, translators, bloggers and support representatives who have gone to great lengths to build the WordPress Codex.
This is state-of-the-art documentation, the like of which you’ve never seen. That’s not all, WordPress boasts of a very active support forum frequented by members of the community.
With these resources and a slew of independent service companies such as WordPress support companies service providers, you got yourself covered. Also, there are tons of ready and available freelancers that will shock you with their speedy responses to your woes.
WordPress is just a blogging tool
This is probably the most common of the WordPress myths. What’s more, it’s based on a kernel of truth. Back when WordPress was first developed in 2003; it was first and foremost a blogging platform.
Its design and primary features were created with the needs of bloggers in mind, even though it was used for a variety of different types of site. However, the platform has grown and developed a lot over the past 15 years.
Today, it’s not primarily a blogging tool. Instead, it’s a fully-functioning Content Management System (CMS). This means you can use it to create any type of website thanks to the flexibility of the core platform.
Also, it has a vast array of plugins available that encompass just about every feature or functionality you could imagine. Of course, WordPress is still used to create blogs but it’s also used for business sites, portfolios, e-commerce stores, forums, knowledge bases and much more.
If you still doubt this, just check out one of the many roundups of sites running on WordPress today.