WordPress is the popular CMS tool developed in PHP with MySQL database. It is widely being used in top companies for developing and hosting websites. WordPress professionals are in-demand and they will be hired regularly by global recruiters.
WordPress Interview Questions and Answers
Here is a list of popular and frequently asked WordPress Interview Questions and Answers that help you ace the technical rounds easily.
1. Define WordPress
WordPress is the popularly used open-source Content Management System (CMS) tool for developing websites and blogs. It is built on PHP with MySQL and we can use it for personal and commercial website development. WordPress is licensed under GPL and it is available for free that is already being used by 60 million websites worldwide.
2. How secure is a website that is developed with WordPress?
The website developed with WordPress is safe and secure to operate and it is good for a website to be updated with the latest version of WordPress to avoid hacking and illegal access.
3. When was WordPress released initially and what is the latest version of WordPress?
WordPress was launched on 27th May 2003 by Mike Little and Matt Mullenweg and it was available as an open-source tool in October 2009. The latest and current version of WordPress is 5.9 and it was released in January 2022 with big updates and specialized features.
4. What are the system prerequisites for WordPress?
The system requirements for installing WordPress are as follows
- Database: MySQL 5.0 or MariaDB 10.0 or above.
- Web Server: WAMP for Windows, LAMP for Linux, XAMP for multi-platform, & MAMP for Macintosh
- Operating System: Cross-Platform
- Browser-Support: IE 8 & above, Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Google Chrome
- PHP Compatibility: PHP 5.2+
- HTTPS support is recommended and the mod_rewrite Apache Module
5. Explain the features of WordPress
WordPress is used to develop everything from simple websites like blogs to complex portals like enterprise websites and web applications. Following are the specialized features of WordPress
- Simplicity and Flexibility
- Publishing tools
- In-Built Search Engine Optimized
- User Management
- Media Management
- Easy Theme System Selection
- Extensibility with Plugins
- Own data – no unwanted advert
- Multilingual Support with 70 languages
- Easy Installation and Upgrades
- Built-in Comments System
- Custom Content Types
6. What are the major components in the home screen of WordPress?
The major components that are shown on the home screen of WordPress are as follows
- Dashboard Menu that provides the navigation menu options for the media library, pages, posts, and comments on the left side of the screen
- Screen Options display various types of widgets that can be shown or hidden on some screen. It also contains the checkboxes to show or hide various screen options to allow customization sections.
- Welcome component to provide customization facilities by clicking the customize button.
- Quick Draft is the component that includes a mini post editor used to write, save, or publish the post from the admin dashboard.
- WordPress News is the component that displays the latest news about the software update of WordPress
- Activity is the main component that shows the latest comments and recent posts and it allows users to reply, edit, delete, approve, or disapprove the comments.
7. Explain hooks and their types
Hooks allow users to create WordPress themes or plug-ins with shortcode without changing the original files and the following are the two types of hooks
- Action Hooks that facilitate users to insert an additional code from an outside resource
- Filter Hooks that facilitate users to add content or text at the end of the post
8. What are the reasons to use MySQL for WordPress?
Following are the reasons to use MySQL for creating a website with WordPress
- Open-source database application
- Extremely fast and easy access
- Widely available database server
- Low-cost Linux hosting support
9. List the default tables of WordPress
There are nearly 11 default tables in WordPress and they are as follows
- wp_commentmeta
- wp_comments
- wp_links
- wp_options
- wp_postmeta
- wp_posts
- wp_terms
- wp_term_relationships
- wp_term_taxonomy
- wp_usermeta
- wp_users
10. What are the limitations of WordPress?
Following are the situations in that WordPress is not suitable or recommended
- Non-CMS based website development project
- Sophisticated and innovative e-commerce website developments
- Websites that need custom scripting solutions
11. Define Posts in WordPress
Posts are the thing that allows you to write a blog or post it on your site and they will be listed in reverse chronological order on the front page of your blog.
12. Define Moderate Comment in WordPress
Visitors’ comments on a particular post will not be published directly until the admin permits it and it is known as moderation. We should select Settings Option from the dashboard and check the option to change the comment moderation setting to “Comment must be manually approved”.
13. Define Categories in WordPress
Categories enable users to divide its content into various sections with different topics published on a single website that can be divided into small groups. It shows a reader what a post is about and they can easily discover the content.
14. Define Tags in WordPress
Tags are used like posts that can be grouped to make it more comfortable for the users to search for a particular post. They are similar to categories with different options.
15. Explain the user types in WordPress
WordPress user role helps in accessing permission to the users of a WordPress site
- Administrator with full rights over a site
- Editor to deal with a content section of a website
- Author to deal with posts and they can delete the post after publishing
- Contributor who doesn’t have the right to publish their post or page and they need to send it to the administrator for reviews.
- Subscriber is for users to log in and update their profile
- A follower is a person that doesn’t have any right and they can read and comment on your post
- Viewer is the one who can read and comment on a post.
16. Define WordPress Themes
WordPress themes are used to design the layout and appearance of your website in the front end. They are varied in many ways and are available for free and premium access. Free WordPress theme is to be compromised with the quality like many other sites using the same theme.
17. Explain WordPress plugins
WordPress plugins are programs developed in PHP scripting language that extends the functionality or added features to a WordPress site. They offer additional functions to an application.
18. Explain how to improve security in a WordPress site?
Security in a WordPress site is important as the websites are easy targets for hackers and a site can’t be perfectly secured but one can at least reduce the risk by implementing various security measures. Following are the measures to secure a WordPress site
- Choosing a host
- Strong password
- 2 step login authentications
- Limit the number of login attempts
- Use SSL
- Updated site
19. Explain the ways to optimize WordPress site performance
Increasing the speed of site optimization gives the best possible outcomes and improves the ranking of a website there are many ways to optimize a WordPress site and they are as follows
- Utilize CDN
- Utilize a caching plugin
- Utilize a simple theme or framework
- Updated website
- Split long posts into smaller pages
20. Why is Backup significant?
Backup enables users to retrieve the site back if something goes wrong or if the site breaks. There are many possibilities for this like external attack, server down, or hacking. Users will lose all data on all the posts on the site and the backup is important to avoid it. Securing the backup is a crucial issue as we have to update the plugins and themes regularly in a specified interval. Using a strong username and password is important and the database name must be uncommon.
21. Explain the steps for backup of the database
All the posts, media files, comments, and metadata will be stored in the database. It contains the user’s information and all plugin settings. All the stored data will be personal and unique and if users lose them, they will be gone permanently. Following are the steps to take back up the database
- Select the database that you have created at the installation of the WordPress application
- Click on Export and use Quick when the database is small and use Custom for the large database.
- If you choose custom, a table will be appeared, and select all the tables
- Check out the output section and choose SQL from the format drop-down menu
- Give tick to the checkbox named “Add drop table” and it is useful for overwriting the existing table
- Give a tick to the checkbox named “If not exists” and it prevents errors when tables are already present in the database.
- Then click go and the data will be saved in the system.
22. Explain Importers in WordPress
Importers are plugins that offer the functionality to import a bulk XML file with any number of records. It allows importing posts, pages, user data, custom posts, etc in an XML file.
23. List some of the template tags of WordPress
Template tags in WordPress are PHP functions used to display data dynamically or customized blog template. Following are the list of template tags popularly used in WordPress
- get_header()
- wp_register()
- get_sidebar()
- wp_title()
- wp_enqueue_script()
- get_the_author()
- wp_list_authors()
- category_description()
- get_bookmarks()
24. List some of the action hooks and filter hooks in WordPress
Following are some of the filter hooks functions used in WordPress
- has_filter()
- add_filter()
- apply_filters()
- apply_filter_ref_array()
- current_filter()
- remove_filter()
- remove_all_filters()
- doing_filter()
Following are some of the action hooks used in WordPress
- has_action()
- add_action()
- do_action()
- do_action_ref_array()
- did_action()
- remove_action()
- remove_all_actions()
- doing_action()
25. Define Child theme in WordPress
The extension of the parent theme is known as the child theme and if we want to make changes to the parent theme, we should update or undo the changes. The customizations are preserved on an update when we work on a child theme.
Conclusion
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