The History of WordPress: Everything You Need To Know

Really curious to know about WordPress and its entire journey towards the most successful CMS? Yes??? This post is definitely for you. Let’s have a walk through this along with me!!!  

Now, it’s been more than 15+ years since the time WordPress has come into the existence. I am genuinely feeling extremely happy to share that presently WordPress is showing its worth almost everywhere. This WordPress is powering websites, eCommerce stores, and blogs to a great extent. 

To be pretty honest, this WordPress has now got a big deal in the web development arena. In this tech-savvy era, WordPress accounts for nearly 50 to 60 percent of the global market with its well-recognized Content Management System. As a matter of fact, this powers more than 35% of the internet with its vast services. Before we take a complete look into the history of WordPress, let’s first know how it has evolved this much and where is it standing today.

What is WordPress?

So what is this WordPress? Well, WordPress is an open-source and free and Content Management System. The main characteristics of WordPress are the plugin architecture and template system. 

These templates let web designers make a pre-defined outline rather than just creating a new site from the very initial point. On the other hand, these plugins allow you integrate the extra functionality into the website so that a designer can design the site as per their customized requirements and make something which is out of the box and different from others. 

The best part about WordPress is that its founders worked on the belief that exceptional software should work with the least setup. 

The central purpose of its founders is to make some amazing tools that are intuitive and simple to use for its users. Of all the tools integrated by numerous web designers, WordPress has emerged as one of the top choices for many reasons. The reason for this is quite apparent – it renders some of the amazing advantages & privileges to businesses. 

History & Origins Of WordPress

In the very starting, WordPress started as a diverge of b2/cafelog in the year 2003 by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. 

Both were working really hard to create some well-architected and classic publishing system on which an individual can work his or her own. Well, one French programmer named Michel Valdrighi developed a B2/cafelog in the early 2001 year. This was a whole different idea that has initiated a completely different way of creating websites and webpages, and that is “WordPress” itself. The major idea was to create web pages and web sites dynamically from the database contents of MySQL. This way, they got to extend the utilization of the content.

Earlier the days in 2002, the primary cause for the evolution of WordPress was the thing that the designer guide for b2/cafelog got completely nonexistent for its users. Since Michel Valdrighi worked steadily on the design in 2002, it got really abandoned for him to leave the users with interest in the future of the overall design. At that particular point in time, one of the most concerned people was Matt Mullenweg.

Now fast forward to the year 2003, when Matt Mullenweg considered making use of b2/cafelog source code to create a new platform with the use of technologies that were great at that time. That was a time when he wanted it to possess the hackability of b2, parsing of TextPatter, comfort of the setup, and versatility of MoveableType.   

The Foundation

WordPress Foundation has taken place in the year 2010. There was an organization named up Automattic that actually held the trademarks of WordPress and thus made the entire foundation follow the interpretations of some other successful patrons. To be honest, the whole idea is to get them insulated and confine the criticism of the business name. 

REST API Infrastructure

In the year 2015, we humans all across the world got to see a completely new face of WordPress. This was the year when we all had witnessed the consolidation of the foundation REST API into the Core WordPress. This consolidation of REST enabled the less complicated nature of bespoke API.

This REST is also common among the people as RESTful web service and RESTful API. This REST is primarily based on the REpresentational State Transfer Technology, which is of structural style. In this, a user can get the complete access of the data, which is often used in web development services, which oftenly practices different HTTP requests to PUT, GET, DELETE and POST the data.  

WordPress In 2020

If we talk about presently, then WordPress is the only thing that is powering more than 20% of self-hosted websites on the internet. Its framework is just similar to the outset b2/cafelog structure – PHP. This is a server-side programming scripting language used for the purpose of Web development. On the other side, MySQL is an open-source relational database management system, best known because of its customizable and adaptable nature. At that time, Matt Mullenweg was actually trying really hard to build the robust platform he was speaking about initially in the year 2003.  

Despite of everything, Apache is one another technology integrated for WordPress web server environments. Basically, these were with Nginx, varnish cache, and mod_rewrite module. These sorts of tools were integrated to make the WordPress website work quickly. Well, the latest addition to the WordPress platform was the addition of Gutenberg editor to let designers & other novice developers create engaging sites. Gutenberg is primarily linked with a Managed WordPress host to streamline operations of digital businesses, developers, and users.

An Overview of WordPress Basics

WordPress Themes        

Well, WordPress theme is basically a set of templates and style sheets practiced to specify the overall look of the WordPress website. These templates will change the whole way your website looks and what users see on the front end. Nowadays, there are so many free of cost WordPress themes and templates available in WordPress.org theme directory. More so, you can also consider going for premium WordPress themes that can give you access to the added features and functionality. There are various sites that utilize custom themes for their WordPress web site designs too.

Well, these themes can be very much effective for your WordPress website if it possesses the appropriate themes. Usually, WordPress comes with a set of some default themes which you can utilize without paying any penny. On the other hand, if you wish to get something different from others, then you can consider going for the premium ones to build your business website.  The most valuable and recognizable feature of the WordPress theme is that it gives a person the liberty to code itself. In this, you can either modify the layout components and typography through CSS or can make your own custom theme as per your own and business needs.

The most valuable and recognizable feature of the WordPress theme is that it gives a person the liberty to code itself. In this, you can either modify the layout components and typography through CSS or can make your own custom theme as per your own and business needs.

WordPress Plugins

WordPress is packed full, with so many different features available for all developers and businesses. However, there can be a case when you are not able to add features that you wish to add. In such a case, there is no need to bother about it since there is a plugin directory available with around thousands of plugins available free of cost.

 

These plugins are basically the code packages utilized to add further functionality. Well, these plugins usually are of images, CSS, PHP code, and JavaScript language. The maximum number of times, these WordPress plugins comes as a collection of files; however, designers usually require one single file along with the DocBlock in the header section.

In the CMS of WordPress, a person can easily make use of already available plugins or can make their own one (as per their personal preference). Nevertheless, by creating your own plug-in, you can additionally extend WordPress and access its limitless functionality. 

Web’s Managed WordPress

With all of the tricks and tools to WordPress, there’s no surprise that several professionals and businesses look to a hosting provider to maintain their situation. Liquid Web is equipped and outfitted with a Manage Applications team to take responsibility for the heavy lifting.

With Managed WordPress Hosting, you can concentrate on your website & content.

Managed WordPress hosting characteristics include:

• Simple to use dashboard that concentrates merely on the administration of WordPress websites
• Automatic Plugin updates utilizing Visual comparison tool
• Plugin-based migrations make it easy to transfer sites
• Build various website templates utilizing Stencilsto save time
• Automated core updates to WordPress assures more comprehensive safety 
• SFTP and SSH access for easy file administration
• Simple database administration using phpMyAdmin
• iThemes Sync Pro is a dashboard that assists those handling various client sites to preserve time by giving them the means and devices they require. Go back to developing and creating websites for users:

• White-labeled client records for WordPress resources
• Power over what users see in their WordPress dashboard 
• Tracing and seeing Google Analytics data
• Mass update of regularly utilized plugins

WordPress Is Changing The Entire History   

WordPress has changed everything and taken the whole IT world upside down in the last 15 years. From the time when it was one of the original self-publishing system adopted by the Mike Little & Matt Mullenweg in 2003 from b2/cafelog, to the top choice and No. 1 CMS driving around 14.7% of the best 100 websites in the globe, WordPress continues to thrive and grow in the world. More so, with the addition of the latest editor in WordPress 5.0 version, it continues to evolve more and more with every passing day!!!     

  Author Bio:

Jasica James is known for her tremendous contribution as a senior writer who loves to share her views on topics covering upcoming technology and the market trends. She is currently associated with Seasia Infotech  a Custom WordPress Development Company  based in the USA.