Is Wordpress Dead? Alternatives?

Vipernet · 11 Nov 2020 at 11:46

So, I'm a jack of all trades Marketing Manager of a small removals company in Scotland. I re-designed the current website back in 2017 working with the existing web design company.

It's a wordpress site, based off a popular theme that we bought and customised. I've got full control over the website and have added several plug-ins over the years to improve the website functionality. I use Yoast SEO regularly, and I've seen measurable success with it. I won't get into too much detail here, but I've got several googlesheets that link up with my analytics so I can track website usage, conversions, sources etc. When I started we had 1k visitors a month and we're now up to 5k a month. With just last week having 100 online enquries, and having to turn away work as we're fully booked.

Anyway, the web design company phoned me today and informed me they're moving away from all wordpress sites due to continued attacks on these types of sites. They said they're going to rebuild the site with their own code, but I will no longer have full access to the site, and will need to submit any changes to them.

So I guess I'm looking for options and opinions.

1) Should I let them redo the site in their code and hope the SEO doesn't get screwed up and waste my hard work over the past 3 years? They said they can't embed images in news post?

2) Move the site to another server we rent from someone like 1&1, but then if it falls over it's my fault, I can't fall back to the website company and blame them.

3) Or make a new site in another langauge that doesn't have the security flaws that wordpress does?

Vipernet · 11 Nov 2020 at 13:07

Dup said:
Well first of all, sack off that company backing you into a corner and ask for the site and it's database so you can migrate it to your own host. That way you don't lose any of the SEO you've put in and you're not pressured into making changes without proper consideration.

While old WordPress has a reputation, if in this case it isn't broke, don't fix it. You can still use and maintain it and it's still well supported for the time being.

If you want a new design and new features on the site then that's when you look at whether Wordpress is still the platform for you and have the site rewritten. Until then though I'd find a decent host and see if they will help you migrate the site. If it's CPanel hosting it should be very simple. Do they host your email services too? Also look at alternatives to 1and1 such as Stablepoint (by a member on our forums who previously ran/owned TSOhost/Vidahost) or Krystal.

No, we use outlook for email. I swapped that over when I started. Will defo look at Stablepoint, I had been using TSOhosrt for my personal sites, but they had a lot of downtime.

Vipernet · 11 Nov 2020 at 13:14

daz said:
Being cynical, this sounds like a way to tie you in to using their services indefinitely or at least add significant friction to moving away from them. If they were to suggest moving to anything, i'd want them to suggest another open source CMS that you will have full access to; not a proprietary system.

With regards to your comments on hosting, if you're with a decent company they will help you if the site falls over. Even if it's not strictly within the web hosting/server remit, generally speaking they'll point you in the right direction to solving an issue, e.g. disabling plugins to find the cause, resetting themes or even if it's just restoring a backup to when it was last working to get it back up again (check the backup frequency of any provider you're thinking of moving to). I don't think you'll get that from the conglomerate that is 1&1 but some of the smaller more personal hosts will.

Thanks for the help. Part of me does think they are changing their model as they're not making any money out of us as I do all the changes myself, and we literally just pay them for the hosting.

Vipernet · 11 Nov 2020 at 13:46

Hyburnate said:
Move over to Krystal. They haven't got a clue do not make any massive changes as it'll ruin all your SEO work

Krystal does look good. Cheers.

Vipernet · 11 Nov 2020 at 15:23

I've voiced all my concerns and got a reply with phrase "the current website is posing a security threat and is liable to being exploited and hacked"

If I'm on top of every update, rated plugins and got ssl enabled am I really liable to being hacked?

Vipernet · 12 Nov 2020 at 13:10

touch said:
Have you checked that your theme and all plugins are still being actively maintained? You may have all the latest versions of these but if the original author is no longer supporting them and releasing new versions then they could post a threat.

The only plugin I don't know much about is a Sage plugin for woocommerce that they installed years ago that doesn't have any support anymore. Have found a newer alternative though.

Vipernet · 12 Nov 2020 at 16:29

Thanks for all the feedback guys. I've been using this forum for years and can always come and get a solid response. Going to move it to Krystal. Just awaiting boss to sign it off (saves us money per month too!) and Krystal will do the site transfer for free!

Vipernet · 25 Nov 2020 at 16:39

Thanks again for all your input guys. I've since moved over to Krystal and so far it's been great. I'll be moving over my own personal sites to there too. However, what I did find amusing is when I did my own check of all the plugins to see if they were all still active and being updated, I only found one that was ancient. It just so happened to be one the web company had installed from day 1. It's no longer on woocommerce and there are better versions available I've since updated to!