Why WordPress Sucks: Advice from the Superior Software Company


September 28, 2016

You’re ready to get your business on the proverbial map and you have decided you need a website and blog. And after looking around, you decide to go with WordPress. WordPress.com may be an awesome option for some folks, because it’s great for personal blogs, community websites, and low-key blogging experiments. But just so you can start your with eyes wide open, here are some surprising restrictions you should know about WordPress.com before hosting there.

You have to manage your own domain email

Web-based email providers like Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail are fine for your personal emails. But for your professional email communication, you’re going to want a company email like “yourname@yourdomain.com." Unfortunately WordPress.com does not offer email hosting of any kind. Therefore, you’re going to have to set up your email hosting elsewhere.
If you choose to host somewhere other than WordPress.com, email hosting usually comes as part of your web-hosting package. There’s no additional charge. You can set up an unlimited number of company-branded emails, quickly and easily, from within your web hosting dashboard.

You can’t change your site layout

For example, you might like everything about the theme you picked, except you don't like the placement of your social media icons. Perhaps you want them to appear in your header rather than in the sidebar. But WordPress.com does not allow you to alter the underlying structure of any of their themes.

Or maybe you’ve seen a great countdown timer on another website that would be perfect for one of your pages. The problem is, though, that any custom widgets that use JavaScript won't work, because JavaScript is not permitted at WordPress.com. There many are other things that require JavaScript too. Email opt-in forms from services like Aweber and Mailchimp contain JavaScript.

Limited selection of themes
If you’ve already been thinking about the design of your blog, you’ve probably been enticed by the huge selection of professionally designed themes that you think are available to you. But if you had your heart set on a particular theme that doesn't belong to WordPress, you’re out of luck, because WordPress doesn’t support the vast majority of themes available from third-party developers. And while they do allow a few minor modifications to their themes, such as changing the background color, the header or the navigation menu, it's limited.

Of course, you could take advantage of the premium theme upgrades that give you a more sophisticated design, but you still have the same customization restrictions as with their free themes. You can get a Custom Design Upgrade that allows you to modify your fonts and use your own CSS code for additional styling, but you will have to pay extra for that option. Read up on the restrictions and options at their customize help page.

They can shut you down

If you host at WordPress.com, their Terms Of Service (TOS) very clearly state that WordPress.com “may terminate your access to all or any part of the Website at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice, effective immediately.” So even though you might think you run a squeaky-clean blog and that you’d never come close to a violation, do you really want to give someone that much control over your livelihood?

Fair or not, it’s part of the agreement when you host your site on WordPress.com. The possibility of an unintentional TOS violation and sudden shutdown, however remote, is reason enough to look elsewhere.

You’ll have to pay for extras
  • Custom domain name
    For a price, you can host your site on your own domain instead of a subdomain of WordPress.com, i.e. yourblog.com, instead of yourblog.wordpress.com
  • More space
    Starting at $20/year you can add more space to the 3GB you get originally. 3GB might sound like a lot but you’re only allowed to upload images, documents, spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations. You are not allowed to upload audio files without the space upgrade.
  • Host videos directly
    This will cost you an extra $60/year, and you can’t upload any video files without the upgrade – even if you’ve paid for extra space. Without the upgrade you’ll need to host your videos on an external site like YouTube or Vimeo, then embed those videos onto your blog. And this will work, but it doesn’t look as professional as using your own video player.
You can’t earn money from other people’s products
If you plan on making money by placing affiliate links on your blog, you’re out of luck. As stated on WordPress.com, the exception would be if you “write an original book, movie or game review and link to Amazon” or “link to your own products on ETSY.”

If WordPress.com catches you placing affiliate links on your blog, your penalty could be any of following: 1.) They could disable your links, 2.) They could issue a warning advising you to remove the affiliate links, 3.) They could suspend your account and shut you down.

You can't use custom plugins
You can get plugins to help you with SEO, plugins for backing up your blog, plugins for creating custom forms, plugins to improve the speed of your blog. Right now the number of WordPress plugins available from independent developers is 27,000 and continuing to grow. But for their security reasons, you’re not allowed to use any third-party plugins when you host on WordPress.com. You do have the option, however, of upgrading to WordPress's VIP hosting package, which starts at a mere $3,750 per month (really; this is not a misprint).

Not sure what you should be looking for instead? Our websites are built on our own proprietary software. They have unique capabilities, outside of a responsive design  – they have a full backend with tools like a CRM, event calendar, email marketing (much like constant contact), blog, analytics, and more. Every site we build is entirely custom, and can have any number of configurations. We don't use templates, have no constraints of a theme, and have complete freedom in design. Call us today for more info: 303-498-9000.