Ability to Transition Completed Wordpress Website to New Coder/Developer

Kingalan1

We have worked with the same Wordpress developer since 2012. They recently redesigned our Wordpress site. We purchased a real estate theme and they performed major modifications to it. The project took 8 months. There are many customized widgets and multiple plugins.

We hired a new SEO. The SEO is very comfortable coding. The SEO performed certain modifications and the code broke. The original developer stepped in and and helped restore the code. The SEO stated that the site should not be so delicate; that too many plugins and widgets are used making it inherently unstable. The original developer is claiming that the SEO did not follow best practices (they did not use a dev server to test). For a non technical business owner this is very disturbing. We finally agreed that the new SEO would make changes on a dev server and the original developer will check these changes to ensure they do not break the code.

My question is, shouldn't a Wordpress site be simple enough to hand over to a decent coder with little risk of breaking the code? Are there any standards regarding the hand over of a site? I am comfortable with my developers, but what if they change professions or close their company? How would I transition the site?

There must be standards and protocols that allow a third party, such as an SEO to change code without causing havoc. Any one have some insight?

CJolicoeur

It's difficult to give you an accurate assessment with limited knowledge, but you're whole situation you are describing there should not happen.

1. SEO shouldn't be making such incredible changes to the site that it breaks code. Your SEO should be focusing on creating content, optimizing this content, and building backlinks to the site. There is a lot of technical SEO that can be done, of course, but not to the extent that you have to play with the code that much. What exactly was he doing when he broke the code?

2. Your developper is right that all changes should be made on a DEV site, but a big part of SEO is implementing changes and then being patient until the results of those changes are visible in search engines. Not sure what the SEO will be able to accomplish on a DEV site in that regard.

3. I replied to you in your other question about plugins. It's very simple when it comes to plugins: use only reputable plugins that have been well reviewed, have a documented history, are updated regularly, are compatible with your theme and never have two plugins do the same thing.

4. I also would advise against relying too much on developers and SEOs. Everything they do (90 % of it at least) can be self-taught on the web. It's a process, but at least you maintain control. Double-check everything your SEO and developer tell you by doing research online. Don't take their word for it. Hiring someone to do the work is great and important so that you can focus on your business, but you have to at least have a general understanding of what they are doing. We have 8 people working our site plus three content writers. Everything they are doing I could do and have taught myself to do it. I just delegate so I can focus on other things.

5. Wordpress is simple. Themes are simple. If you have a quality theme, quality plugins and a quality host, there's no reason it should be unstable.

BlueprintMarketing

Hi

Use GitHub.com for your code. Run dareboost.com

Can you send us your domain or say the number of plug-ins?

_ "SEO stated that the site should not be so delicate; that too many plugins and widgets are used making it inherently unstable."_

They might be right it one bad plugin can kill a WordPress site so yes too many plugins and widgets can make a WP site a nightmare how many plugins?

_My question is, shouldn't a Wordpress site be simple enough to hand over to a decent coder with little risk of breaking the code? Are there any standards regarding the hand over of a site? I am comfortable with my developers, but what if they change professions or close their company? How would I transition the site? _

**One great thing about WordPress is there are plenty of devs that are great & **

to find them

**https://performancefoundry.com/ is great **
https://codeable.io/ has hundreds of great devs

_There must be standards and protocols that allow a third party, such as an SEO to change code without causing havoc. Does anyone have some insight? _

https://github.com/marketplace/category/code-quality
See https://i.imgur.com/HNh3VjM.png is https://codeclimate.com
https://codebeat.co
https://codeclimate.com/
https://github.com/cknow/checker
Use GitHub.com or https://pantheon.io

Hope this helps,

Tom

yj0gswV.png HNh3VjM.png

Kingalan1

Hi Thomas:

Thanks for your suggestions. I looked at Github but don't quite understand what it is. Would it allow me to trouble shoot code issues? For example, my developers can't get the wt3 total cache plugin to work. They think our InMotion Server does not support it. Very surprising as InMotion is a reputable hosting company. So they have installed multiple plugins to replace WT3.

At the moment the site has 50 plugins of which 35 are active. The domain is www.metro-manhattan.com

I ran a dareboost test and the home page received a test of 68%. The interior pages are will certainly be worse.

I am not technical so these issues are really confusing.

Thanks,
Alan

BlueprintMarketing

If you are running site has 50 plugins & 35 are active.

That is a ton of plugins so I can see the SEO's point you have 3x what I have seen even if a plugin is off it can still hurt your website when your not using a plugin remove it from the site.

GitHub tracks changes in code & problems.

I would move the site to a managed wordpress host like https://kinsta.com/ , https://servebolt.com or https://pagely.com

They will help you with the basics & keep the site running well.

Ask your dev why he needs all the plugins & why he can't do what they are doing with PHP he will have a good reason for some but I really debt for most.

Tom

Kingalan1

Hi Tom:

So are you saying that generally the number of plugins for a Wordpress site should be limited to about 15?

Do you think the Kinsta or Servebolt will be a better platform than a Virtual Private Server on InMotionHosting (what I have now)? I prepaid the annual $1,100 which I will lose if I move, so need to make sure it is better. What can I expect these hosting companies to provide that InMotion does not?

Thanks,
Alan

BlueprintMarketing

Hi Alan,

Kinsta is the host and company that offers a container which is more powerful than a VPS in most cases. You get amazing support for things that you are asking questions about here. They will set up to github for you they will do most of the things that I think you want to have a really authoritative opinion on.

Kinsta will make code change for you ServeBolt will tell your developer what to do

ServeBolt offers Bare metal hosting on their custom COLO NVMe drives that are on a VPS are extremely customize and much faster than and your current host is far superior support.

I’m sorry to hear that you have paid in advance you may want to ask if you can get out of that if you cannot You can hire a company like Performance Foundry to do a lot of the work correctly. It sounds like your server is loaded with plug-ins and is not being run correctly by you’re Developer to be honest you may want to contact codeable and have a simple code audit done for $400.

**https://performancefoundry.com/ is great **
https://codeable.io/ has hundreds of great

Your question about Plugins After briefly looking at your site I can tell you the code was not done very well but I would like to login before saying that

See below:

https://codeable.io/how-many-wordpress-plugins-too-many/

https://wp-rocket.me/blog/wordpress-plugins-many/

https://torquemag.io/2018/02/wordpress-plugins-many-many/

How Many Plugins is Too Many?

There’s not a number of plugins that’s set in stone for all users.

It depends heavily on the kind of web host you use, though. For shared or budget cloud hosting, stick between 0 and 5 plugins.

If you use cloud hosting, VPS hosting, or a dedicated server, you can run anywhere from 5 and 20 plugins on your site without many issues.

Dan Norris, co-founder of WP Curve, recommends to never exceed 20

From what I understand of your site and I have to be honest I wish I could log into it and give you more insight. It does not look like it was built very well. It definitely is not being maintained very well by your daughter no one should have 50 plug-in is never a need for that even on site that has 4000 jobsite I have never seen anything over 25 ever.

The fact that your developer is not removing the plugins is a really bad sign

Hope this helps,

Tom

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