Top 40 WordPress Interview Questions & Answers

1) What is WordPress?

Word press is a best Open Source CMS which allows it to be used free of cost.  You can use it on any kind of personal or commercial website without have to pay a single penny for it. It is built on PHP/MySQL (which is again Open Source) and licensed under GPL.

2) How safe is website on WordPress?

 The word press is safe to operate but still it is suggested to keep updating with the latest version of WordPress to avoid hacking.

3) Are there any limitations to a WordPress web site?

You can use WordPress for e-commerce sites, membership sites, photo galleries and any other type of site you can think of. The web site is created using the same html code as any other site so there are no limitations there either.

4) Do you need to have a blog in order to use WordPress for site?

WordPress was originally used as blogging software though it has since become popular for website also.  It is not necessary to have a blog to use wordpress.  Still having blog is commendable as it will help in search engine optimization.

5) From SEO point of view is wordpress helpful? Will it show the website on Google?

 It is one of the benefit of using wordpress, it has inbuilt SEO search engine. Also, you can have an additional plug-in in wordpress to help with SEO and rank on a popular search engine like Google.

6) What is the current version of wordpress?

You need to quote the current version of WordPress available in market along with the release date.

7) What are the types of hooks in WordPress and mention their functions?

There are two types of hooks 1) Action hooks 2) Filter hooks

Hooks allow user to create WordPress theme or plugin with shortcode without changing the original files. Action hooks allow you to insert an additional code from an outside resource, whereas, Filter hooks will only allow you to add a content or text at the end of the post.

8) What do you mean by custom field in wordpress?

Custom field is a meta-data that allows you to store arbitrary information to the wordpress post. Through custom field extra information can be added to the post.

9) What are the positive aspects of wordpress?

Few positive aspects of wordpress are

• Easy installation and upgrade
• In-built SEO engine
• Easy theme system
• Flexibility
• Multilingual- available in more than 70 languages
• Own data- no unwanted advert on your website
• Flexibility and Easy publishing option

10) What are the rules that you have to follow for wordpress plugin development?

• Create a unique name
• Create the plugin’s folder
• Create a sub-folder for PHP files,  translations and assets
• Create the main plug-in file and fill in header information
• Create activation and de-activation functions
• Create an uninstall script
• Create a readme.txt file
• To detect paths to plugin file use proper constants and functions

11) What is the prefix of wordpress tables by default?

By default, wp_ is the prefix for wordpress.

12) Why does WordPress use MySQL?

MySQL is widely available database server and is extremely fast.  It is an open source and it is available at no cost also it is supported by many low-cost Linux hosts so its easy for anyone to host their website.

13) Is it possible to rename the WordPress folder?

Yes, it is possible to rename the WordPress folder.  If WordPress is already installed you have to login to the weblog as the administrator and then change the settings

WordPress address (URI)  :

Blog address( URI) :

After making the changes, you can rename the folder or directory with the WordPress file in it.

14) How many tables are there in WordPress by default?

There are about 11 tables in WordPress by default. Note: With succeeding releases of WordPress this number will change. You need to check phpMyAdmin to determine the number of tables in a vanilla version of latest WordPress installation.

15) What is WordPress loop?

To display post WordPress use PHP code, this code is known as loop.

16) How you can disable the WordPress comment?

If you go on dashboard under options-discussion there is a comment “ Allow people to post comment” try unchecking the comment.

17) What are the steps you can take if your WordPress file is hacked?

• Install security plug-ins like WP security
• Re-install the latest version of WordPress
• Change password and user-ids for all your users
• Check your themes and plug-ins are up to date

18) What are the template tags in WordPress?

In WordPress template tags is a code that instructs WordPress to “do” or “get” something.

19) Does WordPress have cookies?

Yes, WordPress have cookies and WordPress uses cookies for verification of users while logged in.

20) In what case you don’t see plugin menu?

You can’t see your plugin menu when the blog is hosted on free wordpress.com as you cannot add plugin there.  Also, if you do not have an account of an administrator level on your WordPress is not possible to see plugin.

21) At what instance you get locked out of your WordPress admin and see your website as a blank screen?

This would likely happen when you have pasted a code from a website with wrong formats, also when you have pasted a code in a wrong location. It may also happen when your IP is banned

22) Why you use a static front page in wordpress?

Some WordPress users wants their WordPress installation to be more than a blog site. To give their page a look more like a real website page some users use static front page.

23) What are the plugins you can use to create contact form in WordPress?

To create a contact form in WordPress you can use plugin like Gravity forms or also you can use a free plugin contact form 7.

24) Why widget does not show up in the sidebar?

While using widget you have to ensure whether your theme supports the widget and if it does then it must show the sidebar.  If in any case if it happens that you don’t see the sidebar then it might be missing the “function.php” file or file similar to that.  This can also happen if you have forgot to save the changes in the widget or refreshing the older display of the page.

25) Is there any limitation for using WordPress?

No, there is no limitation for using WordPress.  WordPress can be used for innumerable purpose membership site, e-commerce site, photo-gallery and many more.

26) How is creating a site on wordpress.org different from wordpress.com?

Most of the things are similar in both except the choices of themes and the usage of plugins.

27) Why wordpress.com is considered more secure than wordpress.org?

WordPress.com is considered more secure than wordpress.org because they limit the themes and also does not allow installing plugin’s.  However the security is more dependable on how the hosting company is hosting your website(wordpress.org) & also what are the steps they are taking to prevent the security problems.

28) Does de-activated plugins slow down a WordPress site?

No, de-activated plugins cannot slow down the WordPress site.  Wordpress only loads the active plugins and ignores everything else.

29) In what case we cannot recommend WordPress to our client?

We cannot recommend WordPress on following situation:

• If client is working on non-CMS base project
• If site wants complex or innovative e-commerce
• In case of enterprise intranet solution
• Sites requiring custom scripting solutions.

30) What are the essential features you look for a theme?

Theme selection differs according to the requirement, but an ideal theme would be something that would not restrict to use the number of pages, plugins or static homepage.

31) How Custom theme is different than Normal theme?

Custom theme allows for SEO search, but with a SEO plugin available it would not make much difference to normal theme. One benefit using the Custom theme is that it allows to make the changes without going much into the coding part.

32) How you can create a static page with WordPress?

To create a static page in wordpress, in the page section  you have to upload a php files to the server in the theme folder, and then select that as your template.  This allows you to add any page and look that you wanted for your blog and it will remain static.

33) Is there any other CMS better WordPress?

WordPress is no doubt a good CMS, but Drupal and Joomla are among the best CMS you can work with.

34) Which is the best multi-lingual plugin for wordpress?

Keeping all the limitations in mind, WPML would be the best multi-lingual plugin for wordpress .

35) Can you update your own content on the site?

It depends on the type of the site or project, but yes one can update their own content on the site.

36) What are meta-tags?

Meta-tags are keywords and description used to display website or page information.

37) What should one use for plugin development — custom post types or custom database tables?

There is no specific preference for plugin development; it depends on what type of plugin’s one has to develop. Though few recommend custom post type, as it has few benefits comparison to custom database table.

38) Can you host WordPress using  Amazon web services such as EC2, RDS, EBS etc?

Yes, you can host using Amazon web services.

39) Is there any way to write series in WordPress?

You can use organize series plugin to write series in wordpress.

40) What are the reasons why one should not hack WordPress core file?

The best reason not to hack the core files is that whatever you might be doing has to be reworked as a patch.