Are you new to using WordPress and unsure of the potential problems that you’re going to face? Are you experiencing difficulties with your site and unsure of what they are? If so, then you should learn about common WordPress issues.
Doing so can help you troubleshoot the problems that you’re facing. No matter what setbacks you’re experiencing, you’ll be able to fix them in a matter of a few minutes or hire someone who can. This can also help you maximize WordPress as a whole.
See below for several WordPress issues that you might potentially face. Be sure to consider them all.
- Visitors Seeing Old Content
For those of you that are unfamiliar with the term, a website’s cache is the portion of the website that’s in charge of short-term memory. It’s an essential piece to the puzzle, and WordPress is no exception.
However, there are many occasions in which you would want to clear out your WordPress cache, such as when you switch up features of your website.
If you switch up the content on your site but don’t clear the cache on your WordPress site, then your visitors will only see your old content.
Fortunately, there are several ways in which you can effectively clear your cache to make room for brand-new content. Be sure to read AliveBetter’s guide on clearing cache for more pointers.
- Internal Server Error
Imagine the horror of building your website or redesigning it with new content for your users, then not seeing any return. Then, you come to find out that there’s an internal server error that’s preventing traffic from your site.
No one wants to read the words “500 internal server error”, especially when it’s on your site. Clients will see it once and click the “back” space on their browser, never to return.
Unfortunately, there are a plethora of different reasons that you’re getting this message on your site. The error message itself essentially means that the server has identified a problem but isn’t sure where that problem is.
This problem could potentially be due to corrupt files you’ve loaded, ones that didn’t download properly, new plugins you installed, and so on. The best move is to contact your hosting service for more insight.
They’ll be able to identify the problem and help you with an actionable solution for the issue. Be sure to make note of everything you try to reference it if the error happens again.
- Screen of Death
Anyone that’s tried to build a website for their company knows of the dreaded “screen of death”. It refers to the blank white page that you will see when you try to type in your website’s URL.
This might also cause complications when you’re trying to log into your website hosting service to fix the problem.
Contrary to what the name might lead you to believe, the screen of death is quite easy to fix. There are generally two common causes for the problem on a WordPress site: your plugins or your theme.
If you’ve recently changed one of the two before seeing the white screen of death, then it’s as simple as switching that one out.
To see if one of your plugins is the issue, rename your plugins folder. If the white screen is no longer there after you rename the folder, then one of your plugins needs to be reloaded or removed.
If you believe the theme is the problem, then simply rename the theme folder and see if the white page disappears. If that doesn’t work, try to delete the theme and then either re-install the same one or choose a different theme to upload.
- Website Not Being Found In Search Engine
This should be prefaced by saying that it will take some time for your website to show up in a relevant search. You need to use many different search engine optimization techniques to get it to that point.
However, if you type in your website’s URL word for word into Google’s search bar and it doesn’t pop up, then you should act fast.
You may have accidentally turned off your website’s search engine visibility while you were experimenting with its dashboard.
To turn it back on (or check that it hasn’t been turned off), log into your WordPress site, and go to “settings” on the left side of the dashboard. Then click on “reading”.
At the bottom of the page, there will be a “search engine visibility” button, if it’s unchecked, that means the site isn’t currently searchable.
- Locked Out of WordPress Admin
This can be the scariest scenario for a WordPress user. You’re unable to log in using the username or password that you’ve used thus far.
Many people fear that this is due to someone stealing their login info and changing it to something else to take over the website. However, it’s more likely that a plugin has accidentally locked you out of the site.
This can sometimes happen when a plugin is trying to make a few edits and oversteps into your login info. Although, a hack is never out of the question.
The best thing to do is to contact your hosting service right away. They can help you reenter your preferred login information and protect your site from any potential hacks.
Identify Common WordPress Issues Through Troubleshooting
Now that you have seen several common WordPress issues that you might experience, it’s important to log them away for future use.
Remember, you’re not the first one to deal with these issues. Any time that you have problems that you’re unsure of, you can contact your hosting service. That way, you don’t further worsen the issue.
Be sure to browse through our website for more articles on WordPress sites, as well as many other helpful topics.
