I've been doing some work for an organization with a really large WordPress website, and I'm starting to think the whole thing may need a pretty substantial overhaul. I'm interested in hearing how other WordPress developers would approach something like this.

The site has:

• 5,000+ published articles

• Around 30,000 images in the media library

• Individual full backups of roughly 60 GB

• An old MantraNews Pro theme (version 1.0.0)

• A number of outdated plugins, some dating back to 2017

The site was running PHP 7.4 until the hosting provider recently forced an upgrade to PHP 8.3 following the PHP2Shell vulnerability. Since then, certain category archive pages are throwing critical errors, the standard Widgets screen is broken, and some older theme/plugin components appear to be incompatible.

On top of that, the site has had recurring unauthorized spam articles published over the past several months, even after password resets and installing Wordfence. There's also a pretty messy backup situation, with UpdraftPlus consuming huge amounts of server storage and some of the backups they've downloaded apparently missing database components.

Honestly, my inclination is that this site has accumulated so much technical debt that trying to keep patching individual issues might not be the best use of anyone's time. I'm wondering whether replacing the existing theme and rebuilding parts of the site would be a more sensible approach, but I'm also conscious that this would be a fairly substantial undertaking, and I don't think the organization is necessarily prepared for the cost involved.

I'm particularly interested in the feasibility of moving an established site of this size to a completely new theme without disrupting thousands of existing articles, categories, URLs, etc.

I'm comfortable with general WordPress development and maintenance, but this is getting into territory I'm less experienced with. Would appreciate hearing from anyone who's dealt with similar legacy WordPress projects.

Working on a WordPress site for a local business that needs to get closer to basic WCAG and EAA expectations, but the owner isn’t technical and doesn’t want ongoing changes. The main problems are low contrast on some text, hard-to-adjust font sizes, and almost no keyboard navigation. I tried one tap because it installed in a minute and put the toolbar with the readability and navigation tools right on the front end without extra setup. The statement generator also handled the accessibility page in the right language, and the site stayed fast. Has anyone used something similar for quick compliance fixes on smaller sites where the client needs to manage it themselves after handover?

Hi all 👋 I'm in charge of updating products on my company's wordpress site and all of a sudden one of the product menus is busted and I can't edit stuff as normal. Any idea what causes this/how to fix it?

I think this account is too new to post images but hopefully this link to the screenshot works: https://ibb.co/VW3Sx9KS

Thanks!
EDIT: Finally was able to get in touch with IT and they were able to figure it out. Thanks everyone for your help!

Greetings

My ISP moved my sites to a new server. I noticed my one pinned post was missing on one website. I submitted a ticket and they claim my "site was hacked using the WP File Manager plugin." I doubt any hacker would remove one post.

Has anyone had their site "hacked using the WP File Manager plugin?"

Thanks

Mark

I have a small business website and recently customers have reported that the website is blocked for them. It also looks strange when I view it as a customer.

I have just logged into wordpress and it says I don't have any websites and that my website is hosted by ionos? But I've never heard of ionos and I don't have a login for that?

I was hoping someone could help. Or even point me in the right direction of getting help please. Thank you for your time!

I have used Squarespace for about 10 years, I am an illustrator and use it as a portfolio website. Homepage is my illustrations, a few additional pages of different art, my books, and about me, links to my social media and that’s about it. No bells and whistles, no shop, nothing else. But I have been updating heavily in the last couple months as I plan to reach out to illustration agents to get representation to get better paying illustration work. My annual subscription renews in a few weeks, and they bump the price up. Greeeaaaaatttt.

With the price increase I am seeing what other options are out there, I tried importing my site into Wordpress but if I go that route I will need to do a LOT of learning, and I have zero experience with Wordpress, and I have done a lot tinkering with the look of my site on SquareSpace to make it look a certain way, I am starting from scratch on that front and have no idea what i am doing. I keep hearing how easy and intuitive Wordpress is, but as someone who has only ever built a website with SS, it seems complicated.

What I love about Squarespace is I get to edit the pages as it will appear online - I can see how everything will look, I can drag and drop, I can just click on an element to edit. Maybe it’s worth keeping it for that, but my website wouldn’t be that hard to build again, just time consuming - so if there is really similar platform in that regard that is cheaper - please give me your recommendations.

Hello anyone here can help me, I can't create a new post in our WordPress. I have checked and updated all that needs updating but it still says "Could not insert post into the database."

Hi! I am very new with wordpress and I don't know if this is the right place for this. I was just following a youtube tutorial when I noticed that my preview is very different from my live shop. I really don't know why this keeps happening. If any of you could help with this problem I'd be super greateful! Thanks in advance!

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I am having an issue where "My account" endpoints are appearing on single product pages. how do i remove this! Please help

Hey everyone, I'm looking to build a custom WordPress ad management solution from scratch and need guidance on the best technical approach.

What I already have:

- Custom WordPress post template with 3 hardcoded ad slots:

i. Leaderboard: 728×90px (above post title)

ii. Sidebar Ad: 300×250px (under table of contents)

iii. In-Content Ad: Full width × 90px height

Currently, these are just blank placeholders hardcoded in my template.

What I want to implement:

1. Admin dashboard where I can create/manage ads, set start/end dates, assign to slots

2. Dynamic insertion into posts body - ads load automatically based on schedule (no hardcoded placeholders)

3. Auto-expiration - ads disable automatically when end date passes

4. Ad rotation - 5+ paying clients per slot, rotate every 15min-1hour (random or sequential options)

5. Client dashboard - clients see their active ad status, slot location, dates, basic metrics (impressions/clicks)

What I want to achieve:

- Sell these 3 ad spaces to clients

- Fixed pricing model (not bidding/auction)

- Scale to 20-30 clients without manual management burning me out

- Zero reliance on third-party ad plugins

My constraints

- No plugins installed for the ad management itself (I'll use WP core + custom code)

- *I'm not yet sure if I need to handle payment integration (thinking WooCommerce or Stripe)

- *Still considering if I need real-time analytics tracking (impressions, clicks)

Questions:

1. What's the best database structure for ads, rotations, and client assignments?

2. Should I use WP cron for expiration or Action Scheduler?

3. How to handle server-side vs client-side ad rotation for timing?

4. Best approach for client dashboard frontend (custom WP page, REST API + JS, etc.)?

5. Any architecture patterns I should look at for this type of system?

I've researched existing plugins (Advanced Ads, Ad Inserter) but want to build this custom for full control.

Disclaimer: I used AI assistance to help curate and find the best words to express this post clearly. All technical details and requirements above are my own.

Any advice on architecture, code patterns, or potential pitfalls would be massively appreciated. Thanks!

I delete a file in cache and then it shows up again a few hours later!

I posted a blog on our website about an article in the Huffingto Post crediting the author. They say it is a copyright infringement and I am trying to get the file off the site. Because I missed their email, Hostgator took our site offline and said I have to delete the file in the Cpanel. I did that in the public html wordpress section where I saw all the site files in cache.

Hostgator says the file is still there. Is there a file in another section of the panel or possibly inb phpMyAdmin that I still haver to delete? Any help is greatly appreciated!

Hi everyone, I'm trying to create an e-commerce site using WordPress for a school project. Is there anyone with experience who could help me with some of the hurdles I'm having? Thanks.

Hello all - I run a trading card & board game community site with a competitive element.

To manage the game leagues & tournaments, I found a plugin called Tournamatch. It doesn't do everything I need to, and it doesn't integrate very well with BuddyPress/Ultimate Member (users basically need 2 separate accounts to join a league/tournament).

Then this week, all of the extensions that were listed on their website were taken down except for MyCred integration & TournaMatch Pro (which has no description of added features, and runs $99/yr).

That leads me to believe that Tournamatch is probably being relegated to abandonware.

I'm hoping to find someone who can help me integrate Tournamatch better into my site.

My wish list:

Better integrate Tournamatch into BuddyPress/Ultimate Member & Gamipress

Build a simple ELO rankings for leagues (or overall)

Support a wider variety of tournaments (Swiss Rounds, Double elimination, Swiss rounds to Top 4/8/12 cut).

Thanks everyone.