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Can WordPress handle millions of users?
Yes, WordPress can handle millions of users. In fact, some of the biggest websites on the internet today with millions and millions of users are powered by WordPress. But how?
Actually, WordPress is nothing more than a CMS, content management system. It’s basically software with a bunch of files that organize your website into pages and posts, media files, categories, headings and footers etc.
The amount of traffic any WordPress website can handle is not dependent on WordPress the CMS itself, but where it is hosted.
Being able to handle millions of users requires a lot of resources and server space just to name two of the most important factors in handling millions of users and heavy traffic.
In this post I’m going to answer some frequently asked questions regarding WordPress and traffic.
By the end of this post, you too will see why WordPress can not only handle millions and millions of users, but why it powers approximately 40% of all websites on the internet today.
How do WordPress websites handle heavy traffic?
Handling heavy traffic has more to do with your server’s resources and capacity than your WordPress CMS itself.
In order for a WordPress website to handle heavy traffic you need to be aware of and optimize the following:
- Hosting. If you are especially on a shared hosting plan, you will need to upgrade that to a Cloud hosting, VPS or a Dedicated Server hosting plan. You may also need to increase the amount of server space and capacity that your hosting plan allows or even switch hosting companies.
- Get a CDN. A CDN basically stores copies of your WordPress website’s files and helps disperse those files among many different servers throughout the country or even the world. This way a user from a particular area can access your WordPress website fast from a server closest to them. A CDN is also quite useful in managing and dispersing surges in traffic caused by natural traffic surges or those caused by DDoS attacks, that can overwhelm conventional servers.
- Use a Caching Plugin like WP Super Cache.
- Manage Comments and Spam with effective anti-spam software and plugins like Akismet(paid version).
- Optimize Your Images with various Image Optimizer plugins.
- Limit the use of Plugins, delete any unnecessary plugins and use only the bare minimum.
- Optimize your JS and CSS with a minify CSS & minify JavaScript plugin.
Can too much traffic crash a website?
Absolutely! In fact one of the major causes of a website crashing are surges in traffic. As I’ve mentioned, these surges in traffic could be of course, natural, perhaps you have a viral post or video.
They can also be caused by a DDoS attack. A DDoS attack is meant to overpower servers with an unusual amount of targeted traffic, which can also cause a website to crash.
What are some high-traffic websites built with WordPress?
Some high traffic websites built on WordPress include BBC America, Tech Crunch, MTV News, Bloomberg, Sony, Disney, Time, The New York Times as well as many, many others, including celebrity websites like Beyoncé and Katy Perry.
How many visitors at a time can a WordPress website handle?
WordPress itself has no limit on how many visitors at a time can visit a WordPress website.
However, any limits to how many visitors can visit your WordPress website at a time will be determined by your hosting provider, your hosting plan as well as the amount of server space and resources that your WordPress website has at its disposal.
What to do if my WordPress site crashes due to heavy traffic?
This is one of those cases where an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Why? Because once your side crashes, it’s a little too late, isn’t it?
However, the good news is you already have all the information you need in order to minimize the chances of your site crashing due to heavy traffic surges.
Although the above recommendations and dealing with heavy traffic may seem a bit daunting. Especially if you are on shared hosting and think that your chances of experiencing those heavy traffic surges could be a long time away.
So why bother implementing all those changes today?
The good news is there are things you could do right now that are basically free or low-cost that you can do to lower your risks of your site crashing due to a surgeon traffic or even a DDoS attack or both.
The following are things that you should probably take care of as soon as you can. These few changes will go a long way into reducing the heavy loads on your server should your traffic all of a sudden spike:
1) Now is the time to not only evaluate your current hosting, but your web hosting provider as well. How is their support? Have you had good experiences with them in the past? How confident are you that they can get your website back up and running?
If you have any doubts, now is the time to start shopping around and asking questions. If you are confident, maybe it’s time to upgrade your hosting plan, even switch to a VPS, Cloud Hosting or even better, a dedicated server.
2) Backup your site now and make sure your site has regular backups scheduled. You can use UpdraftPlus.
3) Install WP-Super Cache. This will statically cache your posts to reduce the need to reload on every pageview. This alone will have an immediate benefit not only in cases of a sudden traffic surge, but your site’s overall page speed load times as well, making it faster in the process.
4) Setup your site to use CloudFlare, which is a CDN plugin. By default, you’ll get even more reduced loading times on your server from Images, CSS, JS, which will be served up from their servers instead.
You’ll also see a reduction in load time due to restricting malicious traffic from your site.
Once you configure CloudFlare’s rules to statically cache your posts, it can serve more than 80% of your traffic.
By the way, the above are all free plugins. However, they also have paid versions worth checking out as well.
Can WordPress handle millions of users, conclusions.
So there you have it. Yes, WordPress, the content management system, can handle millions of users.
It is not the content management system that determines how many users your WordPress website or any WordPress website for that matter, can handle, but it is the server resources and your Web Hosting Provider that will more than likely determine how well and how many users your WordPress website can handle.
Above I have given you quite a few ideas and tips to improve your WordPress website’s ability to handle heavy traffic and millions of users, if you are so lucky to get them.
Finally, I also outlined a few quick and easy steps you can take right now to help fortify your WordPress website and its ability to handle heavy traffic as well.
