About WordPress
WordPress is open source software that has gained its reputation from its blogging and publishing capabilities. As such, like Joomla, Drupal and others, Wordpress has been developed under the General Public License (GPL), it is a Content Management System (CMS) and is powered by PHP as its server side scripting language and MySQL as its database system.
Like all the other modern technologies and software, the history of WordPress dates back into the near future. Indeed, this CMS was first released in May 2003 but grew so rapidly that by February 2011, it had gained over thirty million users on the global platform.
Today, WordPress shows no signs of slowing down in its growth and as statistics indicate, there are over a hundred thousand blogs created daily on WordPress. As a result of the popularity of these blogs, publishers are using WordPress as their preference software for the creation of news sites, magazines, sports sites and company sites among others.
More statistics indicate that presently, there are over three hundred million people who view over two billion WordPress pages each month. More to this, WordPress users produce over five hundred new posts and over four hundred thousand new comments every day. These are indications of just how famous WordPress has become in the present world. Why is this so?
Why Choose WordPress?
WordPress also has the backing of a large, supportive community, active forums and wide user base. This makes seeking technical support simple and troubleshooting a simple task. It’s very rare to experience a technical issue with WordPress that hasn’t already been discussed in the community forums.
As web software, WordPress has developed over the years to become a strong CMS that is reliable for the operations of interactively social media business websites and blogs. The cause of WordPress rapid development can be attributed to the fact that it is built by hundreds of community volunteers that have ensured in the process that thousands of plugins and themes are availed for WordPress websites. As a result, more than 25 million people globally are using WordPress to power their websites.
Through the WordPress plugin system, you can quickly extend the functionality of a basic WordPress install transforming your site into a dynamic, feature rich website that competes with expensive custom-made solutions. There are literally tens of thousands of free WordPress plugins available that even the most novice of users can install in just a few clicks.
The beauty with WordPress is that it is easy to use and maneuver around even if you are new to the world of website building. It is for this reason that many prefer building and maintaining their websites in WordPress.
In conclusion, you should know that WordPress designs are based on themes and will often allow you to create web pages and edit the pages you create through your web browser and this is the beauty of any CMS. You do not need to have knowledge of HTML or other coding languages for you to use WordPress. Its editing interface is easy to understand and use and works much more like the Ms Word processing software. When all is said, it will rest upon the shoulders of individuals to decide whether they want to make use of WordPress or not.
WordPress Advantages
Strong Help & Support System
There are many WordPress communities eager to provide information and support for free should you encounter problems while using WordPress you will not have problems identifying such communities online. Also, WordPress Development Team also has tutorials, FAQ, support systems to ensure that your problems do not remain unsolved.
Frequent Updates
There are always new updates available Online for WordPress powered websites. It is always advisable to use such updates to prevent hackers from hacking into your WordPress site.
Plugins and Themes
Thanks to the Huge WordPress Community, there are thousands and thousands of Plugins and stylishly designed themes for your WordPress websites. Most of the themes are free though some are premium since they are customized to suit the customer’s needs.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
WordPress has currently been voted the best platform for SEO. This is because of its RSS feeds that ensure that search engines such as google are provided continually with fresh content. WordPress is also customized in such a way as to optimize its contents for search engines.
WordPress Disadvantages
Updates Interference with plug-ins
When updating WordPress to higher versions, many people have often complained that such updates will do away with all their plugins giving them more work to develop their sites a new. As a result, some people have reservations for WordPress powered websites.
Less CMS power
When WordPress was developed, it focused on blogging and social networking platforms more than concrete CMS applications. As a result, there are other CMS platforms such as joomla and drupal that people feel should be used in the construction of more ‘serious’ websites. This is often a bad assumption though and WordPress usually is the best choice for most simple websites.
