Articles on WordPress development, PHP, CSS and the technical decisions that determine how well a site performs, ranks and holds up over time.
Facts are correct as of 22 October 2026. This story is still developing, so check your host’s latest guidance as well. This week, the PHP team released emergency fixes for two critical security flaws, nicknamed PHP2Shell. PHP is the programming language WordPress runs on, so a serious flaw in PHP is a serious flaw in […]
WordPress can connect to a database, and it can’t function without one. Every post, page, comment, user account and setting on a WordPress site lives in a database, and the files on your server are really just the machinery that reads from it and presents the result. Most people never need to think about this […]
The short answer is yes and no, and the difference depends entirely on what you want to do with it. WordPress is software, and software has to run somewhere. If that somewhere is your own computer, you can use WordPress without paying anyone for hosting. If you want the public to visit your site, something […]
This question usually comes from someone newer to WordPress, working inside the block editor, the screen you use to write posts and pages, and wondering why they cannot find an obvious way to add a plugin from there. The short answer is no, and understanding why WordPress keeps the two separate makes it much less […]
Technically, yes, WordPress can send emails straight out of the box, order confirmations, password resets, contact form notifications, comment alerts. What catches a lot of site owners out is that it often does this unreliably, with emails silently failing to arrive rather than throwing an obvious error. Understanding why makes the fix considerably less mysterious. […]
If you have heard the term thrown around and aren’t entirely sure what it means, you are in good company. WordPress is often mentioned as though everyone already understands it, which is not much help if you are hearing it for the first time. This article starts from the genuine basics. Put simply, WordPress websites […]
Yes, genuinely. It would be dishonest to pretend otherwise, and any business owner researching this deserves a straight answer rather than reassurance that does not match reality. WordPress powers a very large share of the web, which makes it a large, visible target, and a neglected WordPress site is genuinely vulnerable. What is equally true, […]
As someone who builds WordPress sites for a living, it would be easy to answer this with an enthusiastic yes and leave it there. That wouldn’t be honest, and it wouldn’t help anyone make a good decision, so this article takes a more measured view. WordPress is genuinely excellent for a large proportion of businesses, […]
A theme is the reason two WordPress sites, built on exactly the same underlying software, can look completely different from one another. It is one of the most visible parts of WordPress, and also one of the most misunderstood, since a lot of people assume it controls more, or less, than it actually does. This […]
Most people who run a WordPress site never need to know what happens between clicking a link and the page appearing on screen. That’s the point of WordPress: it hides the mechanics behind a manageable dashboard. But a basic understanding of what’s happening underneath helps when something breaks, when a developer explains a problem, or […]
This question trips people up because WordPress.com and WordPress.org are two genuinely different things, and the answer to this question depends entirely on which one you mean. It is one of the most common points of confusion for anyone starting out, so it is worth clearing up properly. The short version: a free WordPress.com subdomain […]
WordPress still powers a huge share of the web, which raises a fair question for anyone considering it as a career path or a business specialism. Is there genuine, ongoing demand for people who can build and maintain WordPress sites, or has the market moved on to other things? The honest answer is that demand […]
Reading about it is one thing. If you would rather have someone experienced look at your own website, start with a straightforward conversation.
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