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General Discussion

Success David
Success David
127 Points

Major Difference between a Wordpress site and a website

Am really confuse on these three terms, Wordpress, Blog and website. I cant differentiate them. Please someone help explain to me how they each differ (I see all as being websites accessible by browsers) THANKS

6 Answers

Matthew Long
Matthew Long
28,407 Points

Well, to start with WordPress is a site builder. It builds websites and is good for bloggers, especially if they have no experience with web development. Almost anyone can create a website using WordPress. As I said a WordPress site is often a blog. The term blog is used to describe a site that is updated frequently containing written content often about a specific subject matter typically in a conversation format.

A website is simply a grouping of World Wide Web pages. This can come in many forms.

Note that there is also WordPress development where a developer can create themes and plugins using PHP. I have no experience with this so I can't really go in to detail here.

Success David
Success David
127 Points

Okay, that is to say a WordPress is just like a site-builder (a website that builds website). and a website is a group of compiled World Wide Web Pages. Please I will also like to know, Are there any disadvantages to using a WordPress? does using a WordPress takes away part of the website control from the user?

I wish to build a Real Estate Website where I can sell houses, Rent Houses out to people, Do cleaning Services (A company Website)

Is it okay for me to use a WordPress Blog?

I know, Am asking too many questions, but i really need to know how all these things fit together and which I should use, Thanks

Matthew Long
Matthew Long
28,407 Points

What WordPress is good at is managing content. In fact its known as a Content Management System, or CMS.

It's also good to note that it doesn't sound like you are even making a blog. Which is good, because a WordPress site doesn't have to have a blog. While it's true that that's what it's used for most often; and I think it even started out by marketing itself as a blog builder, you can build your Real Estate site with it too.

So using WordPress would probably be fine to build your site, but I kind of despise WordPress. PHP is also one of my least favorite programming languages I've used. It's all preference though.

If your goal is to get your site up and running as quick as possible then the WordPress route might be best. But if you want to learn how to make more or do more then you could start with the Front End Development Track here on Treehouse. Just know this route will likely take much longer if you're learning and building the site at the same time.

Since you're thinking about using WordPress you probably know that there are WordPress tracks on Treehouse too. I haven't taken them, but they appear shorter. So starting there and learning a little more about what WordPress might help you make your decision.

Good luck!

Success David
Success David
127 Points

Thanks alot for your time

andrewgabriel
andrewgabriel
18,106 Points

You mentioned 3 terms (WordPress, Blog, Website).

Here is the breakdown & explanation for each one.

1) WordPress A WordPress website is simply a website that is managed through a GUI (graphical user interface) in order to manage the core components of the site such as theme/appearance, pages, blog posts, plugins (ex. Analytics, Security, etc.) and even users if there are more than 1 person having access to the site. Currently there are 2 kinds of WordPress sites. WordPress.org which is the version of WordPress which you have to install and manage yourself. It usually requires some time to learn and get used to but it definitely hides away a lot of the complexities that goes behind a website such as database management and a whole lot more. The second type of WordPress site is WordPress.com and this is more of an beginner friendly platform where you don't have to install anything yourself and they usually handle stuff like security, analytics, etc. for you without you have to have a whole lot of technical knowledge.

2) Website A website is any webpage you navigate to in your browser. Websites can be built using many different languages and frameworks nowadays such as Rails, Node.js, and much more. Each framework and language has its pros and cons but usually with this approach, there are usually no GUIs involved like WordPress. At this point it's mostly code.

3) Blog A blog can be considered a sub category of a website. WordPress is very popular to use for blogs since it's easy to publish content without having that much technical knowledge.

Since blog is technically a sub category of a website, I am going to give you a brief difference between a website and WordPress. The main difference is that WordPress is mostly managed by GUI and is easy to manage than a website that's built from scratch using different technologies like ASP.NET and MySQL for example where you have to have technical knowledge in order to manage it and build features on it.

I hope this explanation was clear enough and not too technical.

Success David
Success David
127 Points

Very well Thanks alot...

A website is a group of web pages connected through hyperlinks. Some websites are static — fixed content, HTML pages. In other words, no programming is involved to dynamically pull content (from a database, for example). To make changes to these pages, you'll have to go into the code using a text editor.

WordPress is a content management system. It allows you to edit websites without any coding knowledge — drag and drop items, WYSIWYG editor, uploading images, etc. Initially, WordPress was mostly used as a blogging platform — a way to write posts/articles, share them with others, and start a conversation. However, WordPress has grown into so much more.

Success David
Success David
127 Points

are there any disadvantages to using a wordpres over a website?

Performance (among other things, I'm sure) — WordPress is more bulky compared to a static HTML website.