WordPress, also written WP, is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) for blogs, websites, online stores and other content. It is written in PHP and works with a MySQL or MariaDB database. WordPress must be installed on a web server, either on a hosting service or on a personal computer.
History of WordPress
Creator: Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Year: 2003.
WordPress is a content management system. It began as a tool to publish blogs. It now supports websites, mailing lists, forums and media galleries. It supports membership sites and online stores. It came out on 27 May 2003. Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little released it. The first version was 0.70.
WordPress is a fork of b2/cafelog. b2/cafelog is a blog system. Michel Valdrighi wrote it in PHP. On 24 January 2003 Mullenweg wrote a blog post. The post described forking b2/cafelog. It also described features he wanted. Mike Little was the first to reply. He offered help. Christine Selleck Tremoulet, a friend of Mullenweg, suggested the name WordPress.
In 2004 Six Apart changed the license terms of the Movable Type package. Many of its top users moved to WordPress. A report from October 2009 said WordPress had the greatest brand strength. It compared WordPress with other open-source systems of its kind.
As of December 2024, WordPress was used by 62.0 percent of websites with a known content management system. It was used by 22.52 percent of the top one million websites. From September 2024, Mullenweg, WordPress.com and Automattic were in a dispute. It was with the hosting firm WP Engine. The dispute led to a lawsuit.
WordPress 5.0, named Bebo, came out in December 2018. Its default editor was Gutenberg. Gutenberg is a block-based editor. Blocks are units of markup. They join to form the content and layout of a page. Before Gutenberg, block editors were plugins. Elementor was one example.
Changelog and latest update
Main versions of WordPress are named after jazz musicians. The naming starts from version 1.0. The Wikipedia release table lists these: 7.1 Mary Lou, 7.0 Armstrong, 6.9 Gene, 6.8 Cecil and 6.7 Rollins. Only the current version gets full support. Older versions get security updates as a courtesy.
As of WordPress 6.0, the minimum PHP version was PHP 5.6. That version was released on 28 August 2014. The PHP Group gave it no security patches after 31 December 2018. WordPress recommends PHP 7.4 or greater.
The WordPress update list shows three updates to version 7.1 in autumn 2026. They fix security and upkeep. Version 7.1.1 was dated 17 September 2026. Version 7.1.2 was dated 22 September 2026. Version 7.1.3 was dated 6 October 2026. Version 7.1 Mary Lou itself came out on 19 August 2026.
Latest update: 7.1.3 (maintenance and security release), 2026-10-06
The WordPress news post for version 7.1.3 says it is a security and maintenance release. It lists 7 security fixes and 4 bug fixes. The post recommends that sites update immediately. It is dated 6 October 2026. The releases page lists 7.1 as the first release of that series, dated 19 August 2026.
Usage examples
The examples show four parts of a WordPress site: the database settings in the wp-config.php file, a WP-CLI command that updates the core, a robots.txt rule for the admin area and a REST API request. The PHP settings use the define function. The WP-CLI and REST API commands come from the WordPress developer handbook. The robots.txt example follows the standard file format that search engines read.
define('DB_NAME','example_db');
define('DB_USER','example_user');
define('DB_PASSWORD','secret-value');
define('DB_HOST','localhost');These define calls set the name, user, password and host of the MySQL or MariaDB database. WordPress reads them at each page load. Replace the example values with the database details that the host gives for the account.
# Update WordPress to the newest version
wp core updateWP-CLI is the command-line tool for WordPress. The core update command updates the WordPress files to the newer version. Run it from the WordPress folder as the account user. Back up the site before any update.
User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Allow: /wp-admin/admin-ajax.phpThis robots.txt file asks all search engine crawlers not to read the admin area. The Allow line keeps the admin-ajax.php file open, because some site features call it from the front end. The file goes in the root folder of the domain.
curl -s https://example.com/wp-json/\
wp/v2/postsThis request calls the REST API of the site and asks for its posts. The response is a list of posts in JSON format. The wp-json path is the default REST API route for WordPress sites that have the API enabled.
References
These sources are outside Websnoogie and were checked on 2026-10-12.
WordPress
Wikipedia
The encyclopedia article on WordPress. It covers the history from the b2/cafelog fork in 2003, the themes and plugins, the Gutenberg editor, the market share figures and the release history, with citations to the sources.
WordPress news: releases
WordPress.org
The official WordPress releases list. It shows each release and its date, including WordPress 7.1 Mary Lou on 19 August 2026 and the security releases 7.1.1, 7.1.2 and 7.1.3 in September and October 2026.
WordPress versions
WordPress.org
The official page of released WordPress versions with their codenames. It lists 7.1 Mary Lou, 7.0 Louis Armstrong and 6.9 Gene Harris as the released versions, and it gives the schedule note for the next version.
WordPress logos and brand
WordPress.org
The official logo page for WordPress. It offers the logotype and wordmark files for download, with the rules for using the WordPress name and mark. The logo file in this wiki comes from this page.
REST API Handbook
WordPress Developer Resources
The developer handbook for the WordPress REST API. It describes how applications send and receive JSON data from a WordPress site, with the endpoints such as posts, and it links to the reference for each endpoint.
WP-CLI core update command
WordPress Developer Resources
The developer reference for the core update command in WP-CLI. The page states that the command updates WordPress to a newer version and documents the options that the command accepts for each update.
Check the WordPress setup first
The first thing we check on a WordPress site is the version and the plugins. Old versions and unused plugins are a common cause of broken pages and security holes. WordPress is a content management system (CMS), which lets you edit pages without writing code. A WordPress site stays safe only when its software stays current.
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