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In the last few months, the WordPress support services landscape has been flooded with a multitude of improvised operators who propose themselves as experts in hosting, development and systems engineering, without possessing the necessary technical skills. This phenomenon has led to numerous problems for WordPress site owners, who have found themselves with unstable, compromised security, and poorly managed websites.
One of the main problems is the way these services are sold: often high prices for poor quality support, with promises of unlimited updates and optimizations that prove unsustainable in the long run. The lack of transparency and expertise often leads to improvised interventions that worsen the performance of the site instead of improving it.
Many of these pseudo-professionals, in fact, simply install plugins without understanding how they work or their compatibility with the site's infrastructure. Even more worrying is the widespread practice of subcontracting work to third-party developers without any direct supervision, creating a chain of inefficiencies and poor service that risks seriously compromising the client's site.
Questions to ask to avoid unpleasant surprises
To avoid running into these problems, it is essential to ask targeted questions before entrusting your site to a WordPress support provider. You need to know who is on the other end, well aware that an excellent salesperson would be able to convince even the most skeptical of skeptics of the quality of their services, especially a non-technical person who is often fooled, by affable and kind ways, savor fair and a touch of elegance in clothing or the office shown in a call on Google Meet or Zoom.
Below, therefore, is a list of fundamental questions that will help to identify the real skills of your interlocutor.
1. Are you a PHP developer or do you just install plugins?
A true PHP developer is able to analyze, modify and optimize the site code according to the specific needs of the client. Installing plugins, without a thorough knowledge of the PHP language and WordPress API, can lead to incompatibility issues and slowdowns. If your interlocutor simply suggests the use of plugins without knowing how to modify or adapt them, it is a clear sign of incompetence.
An experienced professional, on the other hand, knows the internal workings of WordPress and can develop customized solutions, avoiding the overload of useless plugins that weigh down the site and make it less secure.
2. Are you very familiar with the WordPress CODEX?
The CODEX is the official WordPress documentation and is an essential resource for anyone working with the platform. If your support provider is not familiar with it or cannot cite the relevant sections, they are probably not adequately trained..
CODEX provides detailed information about native WordPress features, development best practices, and security guidelines. A true expert consults CODEX regularly and uses it as a reference for developing effective and scalable solutions.
3. Are you familiar with SQL language and databases?
The database is the heart of a WordPress site and its incorrect management can cause slowdowns, connection errors and data loss. If your contact person does not know how to run SQL queries, optimize tables or solve database-related problems, it is likely that they are not able to provide adequate technical support.
A professional with advanced skills in SQL can improve site performance, implement database caching strategies, and ensure greater security of stored information. Additionally, it is capable of diagnosing and fixing issues related to database corruption or inefficient queries.
4. Do you perform the work yourself or do you subcontract some of the work? If so, which ones?
A WordPress support provider should be transparent about how they handle the work. If they subcontract certain tasks, it is important to know who, why, and to what extent. Lack of transparency in this area can lead to delays, errors, and a general loss of control over the quality of the service.
Always ask who will actually perform the work on your site and, if possible, ask for references or examples of previous work to assess the reliability of the supplier and all the figures involved.
5. Have you ever developed a custom plugin? What kind of plugin?
Custom plugin development is a great indicator of a vendor’s expertise. If your interviewer has never developed a plugin from scratch, they likely don’t have a deep understanding of the WordPress ecosystem.
An experienced professional is able to create custom plugins, optimized for the specific needs of the site and free of superfluous code that could slow down performance.
Specific Questions for WordPress Hosting Providers
More and more frequently, with the spread of control panels such as Plesk or cPanel and the adoption of alternative web servers to Apache, such as LiteSpeed, we are witnessing a proliferation of improvised people - often freelancers who would not have the skills to be hired by a structured company - who propose themselves as hosting and systems experts. However, managing a hosting infrastructure in a professional manner is one of the most complex and technically demanding activities. Knowing how to use a graphical interface is not enough: to offer a quality service it is necessary to have a thorough knowledge of the technologies, and these are not at all trivial. The optimal configuration of Nginx, the customization of Varnish with a tailor-made VCL, the high-performance management of MySQL, Percona Server or MariaDB, and the implementation of a advanced filesystem with snapshotting capabilities like OpenZFS require experience, consolidated skills and real case studies. Without this knowledge, the risk is to offer improvised solutions that result in unstable, slow and vulnerable sites.
So here are some of the questions you might ask to figure out who you have on the other end, whether a systems expert or a runaway.
6. Are you using a custom server stack or control panels like Plesk or cPanel?
Optimized WordPress hosting requires a specific and high-performance configuration, capable of guaranteeing speed, stability and long-term security. A provider that limits itself to relying exclusively on control panels such as Plesk or cPanel, without intervening on the server configuration in a personalized way, probably does not have advanced skills in the system field. These tools, although convenient and widespread, offer generic solutions that are often not optimized for a high-performance WordPress installation, limiting the possibilities for advanced tuning and fine management of server resources. Furthermore, if the provider mentions Apache as the main web server instead of Nginx, is a clear sign that it is not using the most performing technologies for WordPress. Apache, despite being one of the longest-running and most popular web servers, has clear limitations in managing concurrent connections and memory usage, resulting in being less efficient than NGINX, which is instead designed to handle a high number of concurrent requests with a lower resource consumption.
A truly competent provider does not simply install a pre-configured web server, but structures an infrastructure , optimizing cache management, persistent database connections, load balancing and integration with advanced systems such as Varnish, Redis or Memcached. In addition, special attention must be paid to security, with advanced application firewall (WAF) configurations, DDoS mitigation and secure and high-performance backup strategies.
If a vendor is unable to explain in detail how their server stack is structured and simply says that they “use cPanel or Plesk” without mentioning a specific optimization, it is a clear sign of technical superficiality. Relying on an unoptimized infrastructure for your site means exposing yourself to performance issues, unexpected downtime, and security vulnerabilities that could cost you dearly in the long run.
7. Can you implement and configure Varnish and a related optimized VCL?
Varnish is one of the most powerful tools for improving WordPress performance, allowing you to intelligently manage HTTP cache and serve pages extremely fast without overloading the server. However, to get the most out of this technology, it is not enough to install it: it is essential to configure it correctly with a Custom VCL (Varnish Configuration Language), adapted to the specific needs of the site and its infrastructure. An experienced system administrator knows how to optimize cache behavior, avoiding compatibility issues with WordPress, managing exclusion rules for authenticated users and improving invalidation strategies to always guarantee up-to-date content without sacrificing speed.
If your interlocutor does not use Varnish or does not know how to write a Custom VCL, is a worrying sign. Relying on default configurations or generic caching plugins is not enough to achieve high performance on a high-traffic site. A host or system administrator who does not mention Varnish as an integral part of their infrastructure is probably offering a less optimized solution, with slower loading times and inefficient management of server resources. In these cases, it is better to look elsewhere and rely on those who have in-depth knowledge of cache optimization and advanced HTTP request handling.
8. What technologies do you use to perform remote backups?
An effective backup is not limited to simple copies of files with Rsync or database exports with mysqldump, basic tools that, although useful in certain contexts, do not guarantee rapid and safe recovery in the event of an emergency. A reliable provider must implement advanced backup strategies that ensure consistency, integrity and speed of recovery, avoiding prolonged interruptions of service.
Technologies like MariaBackup e Percona Xtrabackup are essential for performing incremental backups without blocking database operations, reducing downtime and allowing rapid recovery even on very large data volumes. Furthermore, using a advanced filesystem like ZFS, with functionality of snapshots and deduplication, allows you to create instant copies of your data without impacting server performance, improving the security and resilience of your infrastructure.
If a vendor only mentions rsync and mysqldump without offering more sophisticated solutions, it is likely that they do not have an adequate backup infrastructure. This could result in irreversible data loss or unacceptably long recovery times in the event of a failure. Always ensure that your backup strategy includes modern solutions, regular recovery tests and archiving systems on distributed or remote storage, to ensure maximum protection and reliability.
9. How many servers do you manage?
If the provider manages less than a hundred servers, it could be a sign that it is too small to guarantee a reliable and scalable service. Managing a hosting infrastructure requires advanced skills, operational experience, and problem-solving skills developed in complex environments. A low number of servers could indicate that the provider has limited resources, a small team, or limited experience in managing high-traffic, high-availability scenarios.
A reliable infrastructure must be redundant, monitored 24/7 and distributed across multiple data centers to avoid single points of failure. Furthermore, managing a large number of servers indicates that the provider has experience with scalability, load balancing, disaster recovery and advanced security. A small provider may not be able to offer a stable service in the long term, leaving its customers exposed to risks such as prolonged downtime, lack of critical updates and inadequate technical support.
Before choosing a supplier, it is important to check the size of the infrastructure it manages, the level of automation it has implemented, and the quality of its data centers. If a provider is not transparent about these aspects or cannot demonstrate experience in managing servers at scale, it is better to evaluate more solid and structured alternatives.
10. I want to make backups every 15 minutes, what technology do you recommend?
The answer can only be one: ZFS Snapshot in OpenZFS variant, combined with Remote ZFS Send and ZFS Receive to ensure instant, efficient and downtime-free backup. This combination allows you to create snapshots in real time without impacting system performance, with the ability to replicate them on remote servers to ensure redundancy, disaster recovery and advanced data protection.
If your interlocutor starts to prevaricate, downplaying the importance of this solution or suggesting more rudimentary alternatives, such as backups performed once an hour or even once a day, he may even be right in some scenarios, but the real problem is another: If he tries to avoid the topic because he doesn't know how to handle ZFS or considers it excessive, it's a clear sign that he's not a system expert..
A professional in the systems field knows well that Data security is never too much, and a solution like ZFS with frequent snapshots and automatic replication to remote servers is the standard for those who manage mission-critical infrastructures. A person who avoids this discussion or proposes more superficial backup solutions demonstrates a lack of experience in the sector and could expose you to avoidable risks such as data loss, unacceptably long recovery times, and vulnerabilities in system snapshot management.
Conclusion
In addition to a good introductory interview, it is essential to evaluate other competence indicators to understand the real preparation of the supplier. Among these, the customer portfolio is a first key element: a professional or a company with experience will have documented case studies, references of satisfied customers and demonstrable projects that can attest to the quality of his work. Furthermore, a due diligence on the company, that is, an analysis of its financial strength, team structure and previous experiences, can help distinguish those who operate seriously from those who improvise. Even the legal form it's an interesting indicator: a business structured like a joint-stock company generally offers more guarantees than a single freelancer or a reality without a well-defined identity.
There is no need to find a supplier who knows do everything within a vast and complex ecosystem like WordPress. No professional can be an expert in development, advanced systems engineering, hosting, security, performance optimization and digital marketing at the same time. What really matters is choosing a transparent and reliable partner, who knows how to clearly communicate their areas of expertise and who has no problem admitting when a certain task requires the intervention of a specialized figure within the team. A serious supplier will never try to mask one's limits, but will be able to indicate the best possible solution, even if this means involving other professionals.
When you are faced with someone who claims to be able to do everything without hesitation, take it as a order of flags. Try testing it by asking a very specific or deliberately complex technical question, perhaps on a niche topic. If the answer is a generic “No problem, we can do everything”, without any concrete explanation or without going into your specific case in depth, is a clear sign of a superficial attitude. In these cases, run away as fast as you can, because it is very likely that you will find yourself in the hands of an improviser or a snake oil salesman.
