There are a lot of things being said about WordPress on the internet. Unfortunately, a lot of half-knowledge is spread, which repeatedly leads to false statements about WordPress and, in the worst case, discourages people from using it.
To prevent both, I would like to dispel seven WordPress myths that I am confronted with time and again.
WordPress pages always have high loading times
„WordPress is slow". You hear that again and again. But there's really nothing to this statement. Just because a website is based on WordPress doesn't mean it's slow.
Of course, you can slow down a WordPress website by installing plugins or themes that have a negative impact on performance. Other factors such as images that are too large and, above all, the server infrastructure of the hoster also play a major role here.
With web hosts that specialize in WordPress, such as WP Space, WordPress will almost always load significantly faster than with a general host due to the good performance of the server. This is also shown by the data from my objective test on Performance of WordPress hosters.
According to Google Research, mobile pages load on average in 15.3 seconds (Source).
Here you can see the mobile loading time of 2.4 seconds according to Google PageSpeedInsights of one of my websites, which is located here at WP Space:
To keep the loading time as short as possible, you should pay attention to the following things:
- choose a good hoster and server (why don't you just pull your website free of charge to WP Space and compare the loading time)
- Optimize the images used
- set a fast and slim theme a
- optimize and reduce the generated code
- choose a good performance plugin (this is even included with WP Space)
- dispensable and poorly programmed and slow plugins
Google ranks WordPress sites lower
A second myth that has absolutely no truth to it. I recently heard the question again in a workshop about what you can do about the poor ranking of WordPress sites on Google.
The first thing I ask myself is: "Why would Google rank WordPress websites lower?" After all, more than 43% of all websites now run on WordPress (source: W3Techs 2023).
So what would Google gain from withholding information from almost half of the Internet from searchers?
Here is an excerpt of some rankings on position 1 of my website, which of course runs on WordPress:
So it's absolute nonsense. I have never noticed a disadvantage in ranking on any of my many WordPress sites. Furthermore, I have never heard of anyone noticing poorer rankings due to WordPress and I haven't seen any case studies on this either.
WordPress is insecure
Bam, now that's a statement!
In fact, hundreds and thousands of attacks take place on every WordPress website every day, but very few of them are successful.
Let's break the whole thing down into potential points of attack:
WordPress
There is no perfect system and this is also the case with WordPress. However, there are many very good programmers behind the CMS and since WordPress is open source, there are many supporters who are very quick to uncover and close security gaps.
However, it is also clear that naming the admin as "Admin" and using "1234" as the password is anything but ideal and makes it very easy for hackers to gain control.
We site operators offer the biggest point of attack in WordPress when we work with such passwords. Because we must not forget that most attacks on WordPress sites take place via the login screen and consist of trying out usernames and passwords (Source).
Themes and plugins
Here we come to a possible weak point. However, it is not a weak point of WordPress.
The plugins and themes for WordPress come from many companies and individuals. Of course, this can lead to bad programmers or even the larger manufacturers overlooking security gaps in their products.
Plugins in particular often have vulnerabilities compared to WordPress itself or themes, as a report by WP Scan shows:
In my experience, most successful attacks take place via the login when an admin user chooses a password that is too simple and via outdated plugins and themes that have known security vulnerabilities and are not updated by the site operator.
WordPress is therefore definitely not an "insecure system". To protect yourself against possible attacks, make sure you regularly update the themes and plugins you use and choose a random password for admin users.
WordPress is only for blogs
Phew, that statement is so 2005...
It is true that WordPress was originally created in 2003 as a blog system. However, over 20 years have passed since then and WordPress has changed enormously.
Thanks to the incredible number of themes, plugins and functions of WordPress, the CMS has developed into an all-purpose weapon.
A system with a pure focus on blogs could never make up 43% of the entire internet. WordPress is used for company websites, portfolios, blogs, galleries, online stores, member areas and many other purposes.
Still not convinced?
20 % of all WordPress websites use the "WooCommerce" plugin, which is used to set up store systems (Source). This allows both simple and complex online stores to be set up:
Extended to the internet, 8.3% of all websites run WooCommerce (Source). In comparison, only 3.8% of all websites are created with Shopify (Source), probably the best-known store system alongside WooCommerce.
These figures show how intensively WordPress with WooCommerce is used as an online store system; so much for "WordPress is only for blogs".
WordPress websites are completely free
Yes, WordPress itself is free to use. It is an open source project that anyone can download from the official site download free of charge can.
You can also create a complete Assemble WordPress websiteby using only free plugins and themes.
As you can see, there is a lot to this myth.
However, there are also arguments against this statement.
For example, there are many very good but paid plugins and themes for WordPress. They not only provide you with new functions, but also ensure Faster loading timessave you time and more. Of course, you are free to make such investments.
If you are not so familiar with WordPress and technology, you may also have to pay for professional support from time to time.
Your website also needs to be hosted somewhere, so you need a host. Although there is free hosting, I would strongly advise against it. The quality, security, support and other things are not good at all and will cause you a lot of inconvenience in the long term.
It is best to set up your website with a reliable WordPress hoster from.
In summary, there are the following points where investments are or could be necessary:
- Hosters
- Plugins
- Theme
- Support
- Further tools
In my experience, it is possible to build a free website (apart from hosting) with WordPress, but it is often not practical.
Many useful functions can only be retrofitted with plugins and, in my opinion, a website is extremely important as THE figurehead for all your marketing efforts; you shouldn't cut corners here unnecessarily.
WordPress is very expensive
Here we have the other side of the coin, because there are also voices that describe WordPress as very expensive.
Just like the myth that WordPress is completely free, this blanket statement is also false.
Of course, it very much depends on the purpose of a website, how much support is required and what skills the website operator has.
But even if we extrapolate the costs of a website that relies on high-quality hosting, premium plugins and themes, it is not "expensive" in my eyes. (Of course, it's always in the eye of the beholder)
With good WordPress hosting, a cookie banner plugin, page builder and performance plugin, we end up with around €350 per year, which is not even €30 per month. Even with a paid membership plugin, we only end up with around €700 per year.
I leave it up to you to classify this as "expensive" or not. As written above, the website, as one of the most important resources of a company, should definitely be worth these costs.
WordPress is not scalable
If WordPress wasn't scalable, couldn't handle high traffic or large websites, it wouldn't have become the largest CMS and wouldn't power 43 % of the entire internet.
If we look at sites like the Playstation Blog we quickly see that WordPress has absolutely no problem with many pages (around 20,000). With Craftsy.com we have another example of an extensive WordPress website with a login area, learning management system and around 4,000 pages.
In the end, the limiting factor when scaling a WordPress website is not the system itself, but the server running in the background. If the server is strong and resilient enough, you can run any website with WordPress.
Why else would the world's biggest brands like CNN, Microsoft and many more rely on the CMS?
Do you know any other "facts" about WordPress that you keep coming across but don't quite know what to make of? Let's talk about them in the comments!
