WordPress is such a mess…

I talk to a lot of people about WordPress everyday. Some are website owners and others are those actually building the websites.

Yesterday I had a conversation with a website builder who said:

“WordPress is such a mess that Joomla is starting to make a come back!”

My first reaction was to laugh, like Joomla will ever make a real “come back”. But I didn’t. Instead I addressed his concerns head on and put the “mess” back on him.

He really had two complaints, his sites kept getting hacked and he didn’t like all the maintenance.

So let’s take a closer look at these things and see what the real problem is…

1. Security / Hacking

Is WordPress vulnerable to hackers? Yes. But what software isn’t?

People think that WordPress is the only CMS getting hacked because it happens “all the time”.

Let me just add, if you don’t want to deal with security use a service provider like Sucuri or WP Mantis and let them or us handle it for you!

The only way this makes any sense is if you put it in perspective, and this was my conversation with the guy who said Joomla was making a come back. 🤣

Me: Are you a Windows or Mac user?

Him: Windows.

Me: Have you ever had a virus or malware on a computer?

Him: Yes

Me: But you still use Windows?

Him: Yes.

Me: Ive been a MAC user for 10ish years and I’ve never had malware or a virus, why do you think that is? And I don’t use any malware prevention software.

Him: Not really sure.

Me: what do you think is the more popular platform, Windows or Mac?

Him: Windows.

Me: Do you think it makes more since for hackers to focus on creating viruses and attacking Windows users then trying to find the Mac user out of every 100 Windows users?

Him: Yeah that makes sense.

Me: It’s no different with WordPress. It has almost 30% of the web. Almost 30% of all websites use WordPress. Doesn’t it make since that it would be easier to find a WordPress user then a Joomla user?

Me: How many hosting companies advertise or offer “Joomla Hosting”?

Me: Why would hackers spend time on targeting users of Joomla when they can find hundreds of WordPress users in minutes?

Me: Does Joomla get hacked? Yes. It’s just not as “obvious” because it has such a small user base compared to WordPress.

I continued to explain the most common reasons WordPress sites are hacked. And it comes down to his second concern with WordPress…

2. Maintenance

If you fail to take care of your WordPress websites, WordPress will fail at taking care of protecting your site.

Are there “a lot” of updates for WordPress? Maybe.

But when you’re software is the most popular CMS on the market and it’s open source, which means anyone can download the code and search for ways to exploit it, you’re going to be pushing “a lot” of updates.

The minor updates, those are the updates with the version number like 4.9.1, 4.9.2, etc. These updates are usually bug fixes and security patches.

So you can see why failing to maintain and update WordPress can cause vulnerabilities, making it easy for some jerk hacker to take advantage of you!

But remember, it’s not just WordPress that needs updating. You’ve also got to keep up on your plugins and themes.

I understand how the maintenance part can be a little annoying, but seriously it’s as easy as clicking a button.

And I understand that updating things can break your site, we call it the White Screen of Death, but if you use a tool like ManageWP, you can run backups before doing updates and if it goes bad you can restore your backup with the click of a button. They call it Safe Updates.

What should you do?

If you really don’t want to deal with the “mess”, use a company and service like mine to maintain and support your WordPress websites for you. Then you don’t have to worry about it, at all!!

If you’re a WebPro or freelancer and you manage/maintain your clients sites, setup a partnership with WP Mantis and/or Sucuri so that you can leverage these providers and still profit!

Conclusion

If you don’t change the oil in your car every so many thousand miles you’re going to have problems and you can’t blame the manufacture!

WordPress is probably the furthest thing from a mess available for building websites.

Hopefully you’ve been able to pick up on the underlining issue being the lack of responsibility website owners and service providers are taking in regards to WordPress sites.