Using Wordpress as CMS for large Websites

[RishadShaikh59]

Is Wordpress good enough to be used as a full fledge CMS for a large website. In particular, I'm talking about a news website. We have been online since 2002 but pretty soon we will have digitized our print newspaper archives of about 60 years. So, my question is, is it OK to use Wordpress for the entire website and if so what are some of the important things that need to be kept in mind.

Cheers!

[Gareth_Cartman]

Joomla can be very slow for large sites and drupal requires programmers. I would also recommend looking at the yoast wordpress seo plugin. I use it for all my sites and he has alot of info on how to optimise wordpress.

I am a regular reader of dawn, Good to see they are finally upgrading

[Gyi]

add a +1 from me for wordpress. As mentioned above, there are several large sites using it effectively.

[RishadShaikh59]

Thanks Barry,

The thing is we've already made the shift to WP but I was wondering thats an OK solution for a popular news website. As for Google news, we're amongst the favorites their when it comes to Pakistan news, as that's where we operate so that's not an issue. Thanks for giving the rest of the pointers!

Best,

Rishad.

[StalkerB]

Well, if the New York Times can use it...

Things to remember though:

1. You'll need this - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-news-sitemap-generator/ - or similar.

If not (and there's no real reason not to) then think about your URL structure, you must use a non-date like number (minimum 3 digits) in the URL. Thus please take into account your permalink structures to include something like %post_id% or other identifier.

2. To be included in Google news you need at least 3 journalists (I think). As you're a newspaper I don't see that being a problem, but make your staff list easily found on the site.

3. Even as a real news site you may initially be rejected from Google news (I'm sure they do it just to weed out the people that don't really believe they should be there). So if rejected submit again

4. Speed. Cache everything - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/w3-total-cache/

5. Categorization. Make sure you have your site structure down and not just adding things haphazardly.

6. User roles and permissions. If journalists are going to be adding directly, make sure you've set up what they can and can't do.

7. Think hard about going for it. Movable Type is a very good option for news sites as well and is much more secure (this is a fact, I WP, don't jump on me for saying it - http://www.movabletype.com/blog/2008/06/movable-type-a-history-of-secu.html - Although WP is a bit better now :D). MT is updated far less regularly and is usually much more stable as well. So just consider your options.

[RishadShaikh59]

Unfortunately, our techies are just as bad as our journalists. I guess we should stick with Wordpress then, I am aware of the scalibility issues but journos are most comfortable with the platform so can\t decide which way to go because our website is going to get larger and larger in the comng times!

[RishadShaikh59]

Thanks for the resource brother...

[ThomasHgenhaven]

I would definitely check out other CMS solutions such as Drupal, Joomla and MODx.

I love Wordpress for small sites (less than 1000 pages), but I think the CMS has some problems in terms of scalability - especially if you require lots of different templates - or even worse - multilingual variations.

If you have lots of developers, you obviously have the muscle for massive customizations, which makes it more likely to succeed.

Another criteria to keep in mind is the tech savyness of the journalists. If you aren't too comfortable with IT, Wordpress might be your best bet.

In sum, Wordpress will probably favor the journalists, while Drupal / Joomla / MODx will favor the tech team. Don't know who you want to help out the most

[Dan-Petrovic]

If you are looking to engage community I wholeheartedly recommend Buddy Press for Word Press. Plenty of useful plugins for it around.