Is Keeping A Wordpress Site A Full Time Job?

[depock]

I’m thinking of converting a static HTML site built on Expressions Web dynamic web templates to Wordpress. The total site is about three hundred pages and gets about 100k uniques a day. I’ve never had a problem with security or been hacked.

The more I read about Wordpress the more it seems security is a full-time job, requiring continual updating of plugins, etc., updating WP itself, etc. What’s life with WP really like? Is it a given that no matter what you do, you’ll get hacked at some point?

Do you get notices every time a plugin you use needs updating? Or WP itself?

How often do surfers get “database connection” errors? It sounds like they’re common.

Aside from hosting itself, are there other monthly fees involved for security plugins, or site cacheing services (I only vaguely understand that bit).

If you’ve purchased a theme that after time is no longer “updated” or given support, does that mean it’s curtains for your site unless you switch to a new theme? What kind of support would be needed anyway after you finished set-up?

Can a WP site back-up be fully stored on your computer? Or do you need a special service for that to handle the databases?

Sorry for the questions. Any replies appreciated.

[oddz]

I would advise against WordPress with that volume of traffic. The infrastructure and WordPress itself requires a lot of tuning to handle that amount of traffic. WordPress is notorious for not scaling very well. Avoid that problem altogether and just don’t use it. What are the reasons you’re not satisfied with the current system? You might come to find that WordPress suffers from the same problems.

[depock]

Thanks for your reply. The main attraction I have for WP is the automated tags/category functions, a bit tedious to do manually, some attractive plugins not available for static sites, and of course the ease of adding new pages.

[depock]

What would you say is the maximize size for a WP site? I’m thinking of building one as a supplement to the static site to use as a learning curve.

I’m also getting some feedback elsewhere that keeping up with pluggin security updates is a near daily thing. Any truth to that? I travel in parts of the world where an internet connection is far from guaranteed.