The WordPress brand has become synonymous with quality blogs and beautiful websites. It is easy to use, to navigate and is one of the most popular self-build platforms globally.

Yet there are still myths that persist about this brand, myths that have taken the form of folklore and have caused some damage to the otherwise good name of this site.

It’s time to take a closer look at some of the more common stories that exist concerning WordPress and finally put these false accusations to bed.

Here we have some of the stories you may have heard and we find out why they’re nowhere near being true.

WordPress Is Not Secure To Users

This is a myth that plays on the fears of users across the board. No one wants to create content that can be altered or taken advantage of by unscrupulous hackers. It’s what makes people move to expensive platforms.

Any popular platform is going to be open to attack from hackers and as WordPress has grown it’s natural that it’s subject to more unwelcome attention. This doesn’t mean, however, that it is any less secure than other sites.

With each update comes a more vigorous defence system and you can rest assured that the WordPress creators are far from complacent about making the site as secure as possible.

Some of this will come down to the users though. If you rely on the site make sure that you keep the platform and any plug-ins you use as updated as you can. Always agree to a software update when offered and this should see off any unwanted problems.

WordPress Is Not Supportive

It’s easy to believe that you’re hovering out there alone on a sea of content without the customer support that you would normally expect from an online service.

In fact, there’s a ton of support out there for free. The WordPress community has produced some extensive ‘how-to’ books and troubleshooting guides for users. It may not be help direct from the horse’s mouth but with all this information at your fingertips, it doesn’t need to be.

If you still feel lost then it might be time to call in a professional developer to help you through the site and get to exactly what you’re looking for.

HTML specialist at Writinity and Lastminutewriting said: “WordPress is, for the most part, free to use and as such has a huge community who helps and supports one another with pretty much all technical aspects. There is certainly enough information out there to tackle most common problems.”

All The Templates Look The Same

This is one myth that is quickly addressed by a simple look through the site. There is a huge range of choices and styles on offer. These include hundreds of free to use templates plus paid for premium options.

There are also plug-ins that allow you to create your own site design without any programming. There really are as many choices and variations as you have the imagination for.

WordPress Doesn’t Deal Well With Success

It might be plausible to imagine that a site such as WordPress is only really fit for small-scale projects but the truth is it can cope quite easily with successful sites and the amount of traffic being generated.

WordPress sites are among the most popular in the world and as a user you have the power to upscale your operation or buy in some extra technical support. Either way, you’re in a great position to get the best from your WordPress site.

It’s A Site For Bloggers Only

It’s true that WordPress is incredibly popular as a blogging website but that’s not the extent of its capabilities.

With just a few simple plug-ins, WordPress can be transformed into an online store or social media site, without compromising on quality or usability.

To prove its popularity as a jack-of-all-trades platform, the company website receives more unique hits than Amazon each month and is translated into many different languages for users around the globe.

WordPress Is All Style And No Substance

While WordPress does very much look the part with its beautifully crafted templates and ability to support images and video as well as text, it is not just about looks alone.
To support so much capability, the team behind WordPress are primarily programmers over designers.

Faye Toller, a technical marketing manager at Draftbeyond and content manager at Researcherpapersuk, said: “It simply wouldn’t be the popular site it is if there wasn’t the technical expertise to back it up. Users aren’t just looking for a pretty template, they need to know that when they promise something to a customer, it gets delivered and WordPress does exactly that, it delivers.”

WordPress Is For Amateurs

As we’ve seen that’s entirely not the case but yes it is suitable for beginners, as it’s relatively easy to get set up and get underway. However it is far more than that and has many more specifications than are needed on a purely amateur site.

Many, many big business use WordPress to host their commerce sites and while they pay for the privilege of greater functionality, it’s the name and the promise of a reliable professional platform that brings them into the WordPress family.

For beginners the site is an excellent place to learn the basics of website building and upgrade as your site and your skills demand.

No-one Knows The Future Of WordPress

In an uncertain world, everyone wants to know that the business, relationship or job that they’ve sunk time and effort into is still going strong and not in imminent danger of collapse.

The same goes for our technology. You wouldn’t invest hundreds of dollars in the latest phone if you thought the company was going to go under and the technology was going to become redundant and unusable.

There is a perpetual myth that WordPress too faces this uncertain future. That somehow, because of its free nature, it is on the brink of collapse and all our precious websites will be gone forever.

Like all myths, this simply isn’t true. If anything the popularity of the site and the strength in numbers of the community which uses it has added to its longevity. WordPress is bigger than just one person, it is backed by non-profit organisation and many, many off shoots all working towards a sustainable future.

WordPress is a great bet for a safe, long-term platform.

It’s A Not A Site For Selling Goods

Again it’s hard to believe that you can everything in life. How often do you find you get one thing right, only for another aspect to completely miss the mark?

It’s the same for website platforms. Many offer smart templates, some offer great e-commerce facilities but you don’t often have access to both at the same time. While this is also true of WordPress to an extent, the myth that this platform can’t support online shopping isn’t true.

Rather than being able to choose an e-commerce shopping cart and checkout facility, WordPress offers the WooCommerce plug-in. This plug-in is responsible for more than 40% of e-commerce sites across the global marketplace.

There are other plug-ins available through WordPress that offer the same function, so depending on how much traffic you are anticipating, there will be an option that meets your exact specification.

WordPress Is Slow

The idea that if you are using a free platform then you have to pay with a slow service is prevalent around this site and we have no idea why.

A slow service certainly wouldn’t be acceptable among the millions of users who blog, sell and access WordPress every day and it would almost certainly put off thousands more considering a move to this platform.

This, of course, isn’t the case and the WordPress base grows exponentially every day.

In fact the site is super fast. It uses the very latest in technology to upload images, video and text and is immediately available as a Search Engine Optimisation friendly site from the word go.

Where, perhaps, the truth lies is that the site responds slowly to poor server speeds and additional extras like plug-ins with poor quality coding. If you want WordPress to carry on functioning at its best, treat it to the best in terms of additional software.

Ongoing Management Is Hard Work

So the rumour persists that once you’ve got started and put the hard work in, the upkeep of a WordPress is even harder work. No one wants to spend hours every week maintaining their site, the initial workload should get easier as the bugs are ironed out, not harder.

And of course this myth simply isn’t true, in that managing any site is hard work, not just WordPress. The company recognises that its hard to keep an eye on updating, approving comments, fixing bugs and checking security so there is a handy plug-in available to make life easier. The ManageWP keeps an eye on all your tasks from a single dashboard making the day-to-day upkeep a pleasure, rather than a chore.

WordPress Won’t Grow

This myth is a tough one to debunk as none of us can see what the future has in store for us as a race or for the future of technology. We can only make our best guess on what we’ve seen so far and when it comes to this particular platform the room for growth is definitely there.

WordPress has shown time and time again that it is responsive to change in the economy, in the world of technological advancement and to users’ requirements. As your website and your business grow, the platform has proved it has more than enough capacity to grow with your demands and needs.

You simply won’t outgrow WordPress. Whether you’re using it as a blogging platform of CMS host, it has the capacity to take the highs and lows of your traffic and adequately manages the needs of you and your customers and readers.

There are so many myths that abound around technology nowadays, from advanced artificial intelligence systems taking over our jobs and our lives to the imminent collapse of sites that can’t handle the pressure.

WordPress seems to be one such platform that has grown surrounded by myth and urban legend. While this certainly makes the site somewhat of a mystery, almost all the stories that surround it are entirely false. The truth about this platform is that it is open to all. It is simple to use but has the capacity to go from the straightforward blog to the multi complex needs of a large e-commerce site. It can handle it all and is only a click away for a fantastic user experience that’s bound to meet all your expectations.