Top 10 wordpress interview questions

WordPress is a content management system which is written in php language to easify the development of website, its attractive designs, freedom of customization, amazing features and adaptability to any business makes it more popular CMS around the world.

The below questions are made keeping in mind all the aspects of wordpress for both the interviewer and the candidate for a effient interview. Going through these can help you calm your nervousness. The companies hiring candidates can use these to evaluate the candidate’s knowledge and choose the best one. 

Doesn’t matter if you are the company hiring or the candidate applying these questions can help you marvelously.

1.State the difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org.

This is the most basic yet the most important question asked in the interview to set the candidates mind straight and priority right.

The key difference between .com and . org is . com host the site for you and .com is you host your own site, in basic terms wordpress.com is a software which helps you create a website whereas wordpress.or is a software which create and maintain website.

2.Mention different types of hooks in WordPress and explain their functionalities.

WordPress hook helps you modify and manipulate your website without changing the website core on wordpress, it has two hooks Actions and Filters. Start upgrading your skills of wordpress by joining WordPress Institute in Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Delhi or Wherever you live. With Action you can add or change the actions on your website in a particular theme or plugin, it helps you execute actions on the website. Whereas Filters help you change data while executing the action, it allows you to add or change data before it reaches the database or server.

3.What are the different types of default tables in WordPress?

The answer to this question can help the interviewer understand the skills, experience and talent of the candidate. Everything you post, comment, do on your website is stored on a database in a very organized way that is tables. Every table has a specific type of data stored in it, here are some default tables of wordpress.

  • Wp_options – stores all the data related to the websites such as URLs, plugins installed title and stuff
  • Wp_users-  This stores all the basic information of the user like username, encrypted password, registration time, display name, emails and more
  • Wp_usermeta-  This stored additional information about the user
  • Wp_commentmeta – stores comments of the pages and posts 
  • Wp_posts- This stores all the information of your website 

4.What are the basic rules that you must follow while developing WordPress plugins? 

To understand the candidates knowledge of platform this question clears the mind of both candidate and the interviewer, here are few practices you should follow while creating on wordpress plugins.

  • Try using clear coding standards
  • Make sure you avoid name collisions, try using unique and different names and variables 
  • Take your security 
  • Use prefix to make your name more unique 
  • Only load things which are useful for your website 

5.How do you validate if a plugin is active on WordPress?

This question helps the interviewer know the deeper thought process of the candidate, you can simply pass the plugin base name and wordpress will check is its active or not, below is the code snippet of checking the plugin active status. 

<?php /** * let us know if plugin is active */ if ( is_plugin_active(‘plugin-directory/plugin-file.php’) ) { // the plugin is active }

6.How do you optimize the WordPress site for performance?

There are many ways you can use to make your wordpress work more efficiently, take a look below

  • Find a good host
  • Keep your wordpress core and plugging updated
  • Keep your background optimized 
  • Use caching plugins for website
  • Use updated PHP version
  • Use third party hosting for videos
  • Delete plugins you don’t use

7.Does a deactivated plugin somehow slow down the site performance?

No, wordpress ignores the deactivated plugins and use only the activated ones.

8.When do you recommend not to use WordPress?

WordPress is not required when 

  • Your project do not require Content management system 
  • If your website is complex ecommerce website 
  • If you need an intranet solution
  • If your website need custom scription solutions

9.What should you do when the security of your WordPress site is compromised?

To understand the candidates knowledge and awareness about the security protocol of wordpress this questions helps to do it, below are few basic steps of wordpress security 

  • Install security plugin, WP security
  • Install updated wordpress and keep your plugins and themes updated 
  • Uninstall all the plugins and themes downloaded from third party 
  • Change all the password and user-ids  of your users

10. What do you think is the best multilingual plugin in WordPress?

To understand the knowledge of plugins of the candidate , the question works the best, there are many plugins which help you translate your websites content, so the answer may differ from candidate to candidate, even though it will show you the insights of the candidate and the pros and cons of it, take a glance at multiple plugins available on wordpress 

  • WPML
  • Translatepress
  • Polylang
  • Weglot
  • Multilingualpress 

No matter if you are a fresher or  professional you’ll have to go through an interview round, so it is a best option to be prepared before you go to the interview, similarly even the interviewer should know what to ask to the interviewee to know the depth of the knowledge they have and can hire the best candidate among them, it will leave a good impression of yours on them