WordPress 2.1 review
- Rating: 8/10
- Release version: 2.1
- License: GNU/GPL, Open Source
- Homepage: http://wordpress.org
- OpenSourceCMS.com demo
- CMSMatrix.org listing
WordPress is the most used blogging platform in the world, and for a good reason: it’s easy to install, easy to use and is supported by a vibrant community that makes significat contributions. Many people use it to rant, blog about their passions or even run their online businesses.
I think most people are attracted to WordPress because it’s not limited as other blogging applications (think Blogeer or WordPress.com) and the fact that it simply works – once you’ve installed it you can go straight to work without any other customization (still, it’s good to tinker with the settings!).
WordPress requirements:
PHP (v4.2 or newer) and MySQL (v3.23.x or newer) are required. Installing takes only a couple of minutes at the most, and even someone who is new to the Internet can do it without any hassles.
WordPress learning curve and usability:
WordPress is extremely easy to learn for anybody who has some computer experience. If you can create folders and use a document editor it shouldn’t take more than a half hour to an hour to get used to the system.
The administration back-end is very simple and laid out clearly: “Write”, “Manage”, “Comments”, “Presentation” and the others are pretty self explanatory and most people get used to it in no time whatsoever.
Another thing that takes WordPress 2.1 closer to a content management system, and not just a blogging platform, is the possibility to specify a certain page or post as the frontpage. In the 1.x series of WordPress you had to install a plugin or mess around with the index.php file to get the desired result.
A little bit about search engine optimization: the search engines simply love WordPress – the light and valid output code (depends on the webmaster too, of course), the option for trackbacks and pings, configurable and clean permalinks, all of this is spider candy. If you have great content and a few good links then you’ll be on the road to good rankings soon enough.
WordPress security:
Unfortunately, one of popularity’s bad side-effects is that every bug will almost surely be discovered – that’s why it’s crucial to update an install as soon as patches are released. There have been a few notorious cases of security exploits being used to hack WordPress blogs, the last one targeting search engine optimization blogs (more details). However, most people will be safe if they patch their installations with the latest updates, so security is not that much of a concern.
Another good thing about WordPress is that if you plan on making a site where you have contributors there are different access levels that you can grant to your users – you will be able to control what appears on your site and still give contributors some of the freedom they deserve.
One of the best WordPress plugins that helps control the scourge of blogs – comment spam – is Akismet. Whether you care about your rankings or the way your blog appears to your visitors, or even both, spam does big damage everywhere it appears. Akismet is a great service, and although it has some false-positives is the best spam stopper out there.
WordPress plugins and applications:
WordPress has really benefited from having a great community – there are a lot of plugins that can extend its basic capabilities; some of the really good ones are:
- Akismet – the best plugin for comment spam actually comes bundled with the default WordPress installation. All you have to do is get an api key by registering for a free WordPress.com account and then activate the plugin from the “Plugins” menu in the blog back-end.
- Adsense Injector – for those that want to monetize their blog the best bet is usually contextual advertising, and that means Adsense from Google. After you activate it you’ll see a lot of options: you can choose if your ad is to appear on the homepage, full posts, static pages, category pages and/or archive pages. You can also define all the colors in the block, ad formats, number of ads, ad positioning (set it to random to minimize ad blindness) and the option to not show ads for the blog administrator.
- Google Sitemap generator – the plugin creates an XML sitemap (that is actually compliant with Yahoo and MSN too) that will help the search engines index your site better, especially if your post count goes into the thousands. Get more info about the sitemap format at Sitemaps.org, the project’s official site.
- Exec-PHP – sometimes you just need to execute a few lines of PHP, but WordPress doesn’t allow it. This plugin comes in handy just for that.
- PXS Mail Form – exposing your email address is not always the best ideea so contact forms are a usual part for many websites. PXS Mail Form creates a contact form with configurable error messages, redirect after form submission, CC sender and mail subject.
- WP Cache – considering most webmasters host their blogs on shared servers, site performance is a very important concern when you start getting hordes of visitors. WP Cache helps take off some of the load from the PHP compiler by storing the pages as static files. Caching is especially useful when you get Dugg, Slashdotted or end up on the Del.icio.us frontpage.
- Related posts – this plugin is a good ideea for when you have first time visitors to one of your posts. If they’re interested in information on a certain subject they will most likely want more of the same; this is what “Related posts” does, it shows links to other pages with the same subject. It’s also good for SEO – when the site linking structure is more developed you increase your chances for indexing and ranking.
- Lightbox JS v2 – if you have images on your site the lightbox is a nice classy touch (see a demo of the script).
Of course, there are a lot more very useful plugins but these are the ones I used the most. Take a look over the plugin list at WordPress.org if you need to extend your blog’s capabilities.
WordPress documentation and support:
I was pleasently surprised to find a very comprehensive documentation, much better than most. This is for the most part due to the efforts made by the community, which is very devoted to the project (as with any major content platform out there).
Although I didn’t modify my WordPress installs too much (unlike Drupal, Joomla and others), this is the only content platform where I didn’t need to ask questions in the forums – in my view that proves a very good documentation.
WordPress sites:
- WordPress.org (official site)
- WordPress.com (free blog hosting)
- WordPress Codex (documentation)
Sites using WordPress:
The last 5 are about Internet Marketing & Search Engine Optimization – it’s what I read so they make the list.