Editor’s note: This is a refresh of a blog post we originally published in October 2020. Five and a half years later, we trust the same hosting platform with all of our websites. We figured that was worth revisiting, refreshing and resharing this content!
Whether you’re building or refreshing your website, choosing a hosting provider probably isn’t at the top of your priority list. Many people don’t consider just how vital hosting is to your website’s success. However, the platform your website lives on directly impacts how it performs and how well it’s protected.
At Parkway, we almost exclusively build websites in WordPress, the platform that powers more than 42% of all sites on the internet. We host these sites with WP Engine because it’s built specifically for WordPress, and its tools, security, and reliability are what allow us to create and maintain sites for our clients.
It Makes Our Developers' Lives Easier
WP Engine simplifies otherwise time-consuming processes, giving our team more time to focus on actually building your website. A few of the features we rely on most:
Migration
WP Engine makes migrating a site less of a headache with an automated WordPress migration plugin. The plugin imports the database and replaces domain values by itself, giving us more time to work on other projects.
Backup and Restore
WP Engine has both manual and automated backups to protect your data. You can create a manual backup at any time and restore an old copy of your website in just one click. If you need it, an older version of your site can be up and running within a few minutes. WP Engine also backs up your site automatically each night, in case you forget to back it up before making changes you want to roll back.
SSL
Adding an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate to a website is very simple; it ensures a safe connection between a site visitor’s browser and your website.
Cache Clearing
With a one-click clear cache option, we can see our most recent website changes. WP Engine’s developer tools also make resetting file permissions for SFTP uploads very easy. This comes in handy when we’re adding new code or files to the server. The server can quickly forget the old code and search for the new code we uploaded.
Local
One tool our team uses regularly is Local, an application compatible with WP Engine that lets us pull down an entire site, make edits offline, and push everything back up in minutes.
It Lets Us Test Changes Before They Go Live
One of the great benefits of hosting through WP Engine is the ability to set up a one-click staging site. This allows a user to create three versions (clones, essentially) of the same site: development, staging, and production. These clones let us test out new features and make changes to a website in a simulated live environment, without affecting your public-facing site.
While local development can be a great way to test new features, being able to develop on an identical live site offers more accuracy when trying out new themes, plugins and code snippets. It allows us to add changes to an exact copy of the site and see precisely how the adjustments will perform on the production site in real-time—without any risk. Then, once the changes are finalized, we can easily push them through to the production site.
It Protects Against Modern Threats
AI has changed how the internet operates. More bots, more scrapers and more sophisticated attacks mean that hosting security is a must. WP Engine’s platform is built with multiple layers of protection that work together to keep your site safe, without you having to manage any of it.
AI Crawlers and Bot Control
AI-powered crawlers have become a real challenge for website owners. Unlike traditional search engine bots like Googlebot, which follow established rules about how and when to crawl a site, AI scrapers can aggressively pull content, ignore speed limits and attempt to access parts of your site that were never meant to be public.
WP Engine’s integration with Cloudflare allows us to filter this kind of traffic before it reaches your site, distinguishing between legitimate crawlers and unwanted ones, and blocking or slowing down the bad actors accordingly. Password-protected staging environments add another layer, ensuring that only your finished, production-ready site is ever exposed to outside systems.
Web Application Firewall
WP Engine includes a managed Web Application Firewall, or WAF, that actively monitors and filters incoming traffic to protect against common attacks. Think of it as a security guard for your website that is always on duty and always up to date. It works alongside Cloudflare to catch malicious requests, block suspicious behavior and stop automated attack scripts before they can do any damage.
Performance Under Pressure
WP Engine uses Cloudflare’s global content delivery network to serve your site efficiently and handle spikes in traffic, including the kind that comes from high volumes of bot activity. Legitimate visitors and crawlers get fast, reliable access while suspicious or excessive traffic gets stopped at the edge, keeping your site stable no matter what’s hitting it.
Staying Ahead of Emerging Threats
AI has made it easier for bad actors to launch more sophisticated attacks at scale. WP Engine’s managed environment responds with automatic platform updates, real-time threat detection and isolated site environments that prevent issues on one site from affecting another. Because this protection runs at the platform level, it does not require manual security work on your end.
It Has 24/7 Support
24/7/365 support means you can get expert WordPress help when you need it, via chat or over the phone with a live person. Their professionally trained support team is very knowledgeable and quick to respond to any and all requests.
WP Engine’s Support Center features an incredible database of documentation, containing informational articles and guides. You can learn about all of the necessary WP Engine processes, from site setup to troubleshooting, on your own in WP Engine’s helpful collection of documentation. This way, we can easily find the correct way to do something, rather than wasting time searching for an answer on Google or using trial and error.
Rob Klingensmith / Senior Developer
As Parkway’s senior developer, Rob has been responsible for overseeing all technical aspects of our projects since our agency’s founding in 2014. Rob has over 20 years of experience in application development in web-based environments. It is Rob’s technical expertise that allows our team to use today’s technology to change how our clients do business—for the better.
