Without a doubt, WordPress is the most widely used CMS (content management system) in the world. With millions of users, it is widely praised and appreciated for its advantages. However, many businesses overlook or are unaware of the fact that WordPress can have a number of downsides. We are going to present you 5 reasons why we do not recommend a website developed by a web design agency, on the WordPress platform:
- Vulnerability to attacks
Without a doubt, the biggest drawback of WordPress is its security. WordPress is an open source platform, which means that anyone has full access to its source code, including malicious people. WordPress is built on a wide range of plugins and templates. They are developed by third-party companies and individuals, and since there is no strict control over them, they may contain bugs, additional vulnerabilities, or even malicious code. Above all, the simple fact that it is the most popular platform makes it a prime target for hackers around the world. According to a Sucuri report (https://sucuri.net/website-security/website-hacked-report) – WordPress is by far the most targeted platform by hackers.
- High cost of development and maintenance
Although WordPress itself is free, when we look at the situation as a whole, significant costs appear. WordPress relies on plugins and templates, and these can add substantially to the total cost of the project. Also, if the website needs significant changes to the plugins used, the cost, again, can explode. These plugins and templates often receive code and functionality updates, as a result, the cost of maintenance can be high.
- It requires frequent updates and these can bring incompatibilities
Installing WordPress won’t do much for a website, because it requires a template to be installed and configured to be competitive in the market, and also requires plugins for various functionality. All of these receive frequent updates to fix existing vulnerabilities or bring new functionality, which can create real technical and compatibility issues within the website. The whole maintenance process can be quite difficult, especially if the updates are set to automatic mode. It can be extremely unpleasant to wake up one morning and notice that the website is no longer working due to an update.
- SEO
WordPress is definitely an SEO friendly platform, but really so are the other open source CMS or custom solutions built by web agencies. For people with little knowledge of SEO, WordPress can create a number of problems. Probably the most well-known SEO problem is caused by the platform’s category and tag system. In the event that the content is overtagged or marked in too many categories, Google will negatively flag this aspect as duplicate content, which will affect the ranking of the site.
- Lots of inefficient code
Being designed to cover the widest possible range of websites, the platform, but especially the templates and plugins, come with code and functionality that is, in most cases, not needed. Although WordPress initially started out as a platform strictly for blog-type sites, over time code after code was added to the point where even eCommerce solutions can be built on the platform, with the right plugins. All of this can affect the performance of the website.
Conclusion
Basically, WordPress is designed to be installed and configured by a user with no programming knowledge, so why pay a web agency to do something you could do yourself?
Certainly, great websites can be created with WordPress, which has numerous advantages, as proof of its great popularity. However, the choice of your business website platform should be carefully considered and at the same time, all the options, advantages and disadvantages should be taken into account. Perhaps, despite its popularity, WordPress is not the right choice and, at the end of the day, your business would have the most to gain from a professionally built website perfectly tailored to the specific needs of your project.
