Just like any popular platform, there’s a lot of misinformation floating around the web about WordPress. Let’s clear the air a bit. The Internet’s greatest strength is also its most glaring weakness: access to information. We literally have the world at our fingertips whenever we sit down at the keyboard. The only problem is that we have no way of knowing whether or not the information we view is true or factual.
In many cases, it isn’t.
With that in mind, it’s not terribly surprising that there’s so much misinformation floating around about WordPress. It’s the most popular, most widely-used CMS on the web. Of course people are going to be talking about it, right?
A lot of what they’re saying is in accurate. And if you buy into that false knowledge, you could be missing out on a pretty incredible tool. Let’s ensure that won’t happen. Today, we’re going to take a look at four of the biggest, most common myths about the platform – and why they don’t hold any water.
Table of Contents
Myth One: More Plugins Means A Slower Website
You’ve probably heard time and again that you need to keep the number of plugins on your site to a minimum – to only install what you absolutely need. To an extent, that advice holds true. But the reasoning behind it isn’t what you might think.
Site speed has very little to do with this.
While it’s true that more plugins means a higher chance of compatibility issues and a larger threat surface through which an attacker might exploit your blog, neither of those things automatically translate to a slower website. What does cause site slowdown is a poorly-coded, shoddy plugin. And there’s a wealth of those on every platform.
So keep being selective, but don’t worry about quantity. Quality is what you should really keep an eye on.
Myth Two: WordPress Is Insecure
I suppose I understand to an extent why this myth is so widespread. It seems we can’t go even a week without hearing about some new WordPress vulnerability, some new method hackers have found to exploit the platform. Think about what most of those reports have in common, though.
They almost exclusively concern WordPress PLUGINS, not the core platform. On its own, WordPress is perfectly secure (provided, of course, you practice good username/password hygiene). The problem is that there are a ton of plugin developers out there who don’t have a great understanding of security, and even those that do make mistakes.
They’re only human, after all.
Myth Three: Big Businesses Don’t Use WordPress
One of the most toxic ideas I’ve seen floated about WordPress is that it’s not a ‘real’ business tool. It’s made for people who are running a small blog or inconsequential organization. Ignore anyone who tries to tell you this – because to be frank, they don’t know what they’re talking about.
The New York Times, CNN, Harvard Law School and Ford all use the platform to run their website – and that’s just a few examples. What matters about WordPress is how you use it. It can be a great option for a business of any size.
Myth Four: WordPress Is Exclusively For Bloggers
Closely related to our previous myth is the idea that the only people who can make effective use of WordPress are bloggers. Again, this idea holds no merit. Thanks to its thriving plugin ecosystem, WordPress can be used for pretty much whatever you want.
eCommerce? It can do that. A user-driven community? It’s got you covered. A media site? Again, you’re good.
One of WordPress’s greatest strengths is its versatility.
Don’t Believe Everything You Hear
There’s a lot of misinformation floating about the web – it’s up to you to educate yourself so you can tell the difference between myth and fact. Hopefully this piece has helped a bit in that regard. But there’s plenty more left to do.
Just remember – next time someone tells you something about WordPress, don’t take it at face value.
About the Author:Max Emelianov started HostForWeb in 2001. In his role as HostForWeb’s CEO, he focuses on teamwork and providing the best support for his customers while delivering cutting-edge web hosting services.
Be the first to write a comment.