The keys to running a successful WordPress blog — technically speaking

Heise online reports WordPress is going to clean up the plugins dir because plugins “suck” and that — despite this fact — WordPress has become a constant in the web because large blogs such as Smashing Magazine are using it.

How do large WordPress blogs like Smashing Magazine accomplish this when plugins suck so much?

In the past years I have responsible for many WordPress installations, including Smashing Magazine‘s WordPress installations. I think I can tell you the keys that make a blog running WordPress successful or unsuccessful, technically speaking.

It’s the plugins:

• How many of them are installed – the less the better!
• Which ones are installed — always look how experienced the plugin’s developer is!
• How they got chosen — make a security audit, either by yourself if you are competent, or hire someone how is!

In fact there are many, many WordPress plugins out there that have been developed by, let’s say, inexperienced developers. There are *tons* of security issues out there. The more plugins you install, the more security issues you install.

When I take over as a WordPress sysadmin, the first thing I do is throw out all unneeded plugins. Then I update the remaining ones. Then I try to further reduce the amount of plugins, either by implementing features myself or by replacing plugins with more capable/secure ones.

Here’s my last tip: If you cannot find a decent, capable, and secure WordPress plugin that suits your needs, hire a good developer with a security background to create it for you. Obviously you have to make sure not to hire one of the inexperienced developers. Please don’t go collecting plugins like “Oh I take this, and this one as well, this one sounds nice too” — this is not going to work in the long run. A successful WordPress blog is *always* run by competent admins and developers, not by “WordPress plugin collectors”.

Of course there are other factors as well, like always having the most recent versions of them installed, or to have interesting contents, but those are the keys IMHO.