Wordpress To A Static Website

How To Do This And Is It Smart

[newborn]

Hi guys I have a few domain names that I want to build out. However I dont want to build HTML sites, I am savvy with Wordpress. However I am afraid that I will kill the site if I dont update regularly.

However I was told you can turn your Wordpress Blog to a static site. Can someone tell me how to do this.

Also does anyone think that Wordpress is best to use other than some other CMS.

Thanks guys

[eelixduppy]

Wordpress keeps its content within a database structure to turning this into a static site seems like a lot of work to me and I'm not sure it's easily do-able. You should just keep it as Wordpress. If you are worried about updating it really isn't that difficult and takes only about 20 minutes.

>> Wordpress is best to use other than some other CMS

It really depends on your personal preferences and what you are looking for in a CMS. Wordpress is certainly one of the better ones out there. If you'd like to take a peek at a few more take a look here: [opensourcecms.com...]

[Marcia]

There are themes out there that are specifically made to use WordPress as a CMS/static/magazine type site even though it's still database driven.

[newborn]

Where can I find some of these Marcia.....
Plus what other CMS works well that is good for SEO.

[ergophobe]

By "static" I think you mean something that doesn't merely have a chronological listing of "posts" in the order they were written, but has more of a welcom page right?

If that's the case, the easiest thing to do is create a "page" (using the specific WP meaning of that) and set it as the front page. Make that your doorway page. Then use WP categories for your navigation and use "pages" for you contact info, privacy policy and what not. The Wordpress Codex has a full run-down on creating a static front page [codex.wordpress.org]

To find specific themes, just search for things like "wordpress magazine themes".

[bill]

MovableType publishes everything static by default. It's a great CMS for static sites. It also doesn't seem to have all of the security vulnerabilities we've seen with WP of late.

[vincevincevince]

I think making WP static is a really good idea. Do it like this:

Secured subdomain with HTTP authentication with your real WP install.
Cron job runs each hour or so, doing a recursive wget (wget -r) from the secured subdomain (supply username/password as [username:[e-mail])...] and outputting the files directly to the http root of the published domain.

You will have to disable comments and other user-facing interactive features (e.g. search if you have it).

[newborn]

Thanks guys I will look into both methods

[amznVibe]

You can stick with the easy and familiar WordPress.
(Movabletype has [movabletype.com] had [movabletype.org] as many security issues as WP)

There is a plugin to have it generate static files or just use wp-super-cache which will make the files display directly from the cache files via htaccess with no php overhead.

[edited by: amznVibe at 3:10 am (utc) on July 21, 2008]

[CrustyAdmin]

Newborn, when you say static do you mean pages that aren't spit out of a database via a scripting language and assembled on the fly or do you mean a site with evergreen content?

To some static pages mean the first and to others the latter and thus you get answers for both.