Based on insights from almost 100,000 people across 48 global markets, the latest edition helps publishers understand media industry trends for 2026, including shifts in news consumption and trust, discovery, and emerging tech.

But understanding the trends is only the starting point. What matters is how publishers respond to them.

Here we summarize the biggest findings from this year’s report, and explore what they mean for enterprise publishers, content teams, and publishing operations. 

The biggest themes shaping digital publishing in 2026

The Reuters Institute Digital News Report highlights a number of important developments across the digital news landscape. The findings below reflect some of the most significant changes affecting how audiences discover, consume, and engage with news.

Audience habits continue to fragment

For the first time, social media and video networks have become the leading weekly source of news, overtaking all other channels. 

Readers now encounter journalism across a growing mix of platforms, with pathways between publishers and readers becoming less direct and more fragmented, particularly among younger audiences.

54% of people now use social media and video networks as a weekly source of news

51% rely on publishing websites and apps

Video is changing user behavior 

Online news video now reaches more people than broadcast TV in almost all of the markets studied. Much of that growth is happening on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram rather than publisher websites and apps. 

Creator-led content is also now a regular part of the news ecosystem. Reuters found that creators are widely seen as more entertaining and easier to understand than traditional news media, although they are viewed as less trustworthy and impartial.

77% of people now watch online news videos weekly

27% now get news from creators each week

AI is becoming part of the content journey

AI is becoming another way audiences interact with news. 

While adoption remains relatively low overall, Reuters reveals a growing use of AI chatbots to summarize stories, explain complex topics, and answer follow-up questions.

This behavior is especially prevalent among younger audiences, making AI an emerging part of the news journey rather than a replacement for traditional publishers.

AI chatbot use for news has risen from 7% in 2025 to 10% in 2026

42% of AI news users say they use chatbots to ask follow-up questions

Trust in news content is under more pressure than ever

Trust in news has fallen to its lowest level since Reuters began tracking it in 2015. 

Concerns about misinformation are also continuing to rise, with many people worried about distinguishing fact from fiction online. 

The Reuters Institute Digital News Report also found that trust varies significantly depending on where people consume news, with established news brands continuing to outperform social media, video platforms, and AI tools.

Global trust in news has fallen to 37%

62% are concerned about what is real and what is fake online

Monetization remains a challenge

The proportion of people paying for online news has remained unchanged from last year. 

However, although the number isn’t declining, the report suggests it may now be even harder for publishers to grow reader revenue as audiences spend more time discovering news on third-party platforms rather than publisher websites and apps.

17% pay for online news across the 20 markets tracked

What these digital news trends mean for enterprise publishers

The report highlights what’s changing. The next step is deciding how to respond. 

Here are the priorities enterprise publishers should focus on to turn those findings into practical editorial and operational improvements.

Design for fragmented discovery

Fragmented discovery means more readers are arriving on individual stories through search, social media, video platforms, and AI chatbots, often without the context that’s usually provided by a homepage or section page.

Content teams should design connected editorial experiences that anticipate those fragmented entry points, helping readers discover relevant stories, background information, and supporting content wherever they begin.

1. Support every entry point

Every article should quickly orient the reader. 

Use clear summaries, scannable page structures, and consistent story formats that communicate the key information immediately, before inviting readers to explore further.

2. Build context into every story

Readers shouldn’t have to leave your publication to understand how an article fits into the bigger picture. 

Use explainers, timelines, FAQs, related coverage, and supporting resources to connect individual stories with the wider topics, people, and events they relate to.

3. Create connected editorial experiences

Connect reporting with related stories, topics, authors, explainers, and background coverage to create richer editorial experiences that encourage further exploration. 

As well as powerful search capabilities, give readers clear paths through connected coverage to encourage them to stay on your site instead of leaving to find additional context elsewhere.

Adapt to changing reader expectations

Video and creator-led content are changing expectations around how stories are presented. Readers are comfortable consuming news through a combination of text, video, and audio, choosing the format that best suits what they want to understand in the moment.

Enterprise publishers don’t need to mimic social platforms, but they should understand why they resonate with audiences and adapt their own approaches accordingly.

1. Use visual-first storytelling

With audiences placing greater value on visual, accessible news coverage, publishers need to think about article formats from the outset rather than treating them as a presentation choice.

Build richer stories with interactive charts, timelines, video, animated content, and other dynamic content elements where they improve understanding at a glance.

2. Enable real-time coverage

Social platforms and creator-led formats make news feel current, visible, and continuously updated. 

Use live blogs, clear timestamps, rolling updates, and prominent “what’s changed” markers to help readers follow developing stories as they unfold.

3. Write for skimmers and deep readers

Social media lets readers move quickly between headlines or spend hours exploring a topic in greater depth. 

Publishers can respond to those changing behaviors by structuring stories for both, using clear summaries, scannable layouts, and layered storytelling that helps readers move naturally from key takeaways into richer coverage at their own pace.

Quick sense check:

☐ Can readers understand the story in under a minute?
☐ Is further context available without leaving the page?
☐ Are related stories easy to find?
☐ Are key facts easy to scan?
☐ Is there a clear path to explore the topic further?

Prepare for AI-assisted news consumption

AI is giving readers new ways to interrogate content. Instead of accepting stories at face value, a growing number are using AI to summarize, explore, and question what they read. 

Publishers should respond by structuring content so that AI can interpret it more effectively, explaining more than just the facts, and anticipating the questions readers are likely to ask next.

1. Structure content for LLMs

AI tools work best when content is clearly structured and easy to interpret. 

Use descriptive headings, concise summaries, and logical article structures that prioritize the most important information, making it easier for both readers and AI platforms to understand and navigate your content.

2. Add context and clarity

People increasingly expect content to explain what happened, why it matters, and how it connects to wider events.

Meet those expectations by providing context, definitions, supporting evidence, and expert insight that help readers make sense of the story.

3. Anticipate follow-up questions

The readers most engaged with news are among the earliest adopters of AI, with many using AI to ask follow-up questions and explore topics in greater detail.

Publishers should support that curiosity by anticipating the next logical question, expanding on key points, and providing the additional context readers are likely to look for.

Make credibility visible

Falling trust in news means credibility has to be demonstrated, not assumed. Publishers can no longer rely on reputation alone. 

Readers want visible reassurance that information is accurate, accountable, and supported by credible sources.

Every page should reinforce credibility through clear authorship, transparent sourcing, and editorial standards that readers can see for themselves.

1. Highlight your credentials

Every article should clearly show who created it, where the information came from, and when it was published or updated. 

Make author expertise, source attribution, and editorial standards easy to find so credibility is immediately visible.

2. Increase editorial transparency

Transparency helps readers understand not only the content but the editorial decisions behind it. 

Clearly distinguish news, opinion, analysis, and sponsored content, and make corrections, update timestamps, AI disclosures, and reporting methods visible where appropriate. 

What readers want to know	On-page trust signals
Who wrote this?	Author biography, credentials, specialist expertise
How was this reported?	Reporting methods and methodology
Where did this information come from?	Source attribution, citations, supporting evidence
Can I verify this story?	Source documents, datasets, embedded evidence
Has the story changed?	Correction notices, update notices, last updated date
What kind of content is this?	News, opinion, analysis, sponsored content labels

3. Embed trust into editorial workflows

Trust is built through consistent editorial practices, not individual articles. 

Build governance into the publishing process with clear review stages, approval workflows, revision tracking, and quality controls that help every story meet the same editorial standards before publication.

See how Newsroom supports editorial governance

Publication checklists, configurable workflows, revision tracking, and role-based approvals help enterprise publishers build consistent editorial standards into every stage of the publishing process.

Explore WP Engine Newsroom

Strengthen the foundations of monetization

Flat subscription growth places greater emphasis on understanding the readers publishers already have. 

Actionable audience insights should inform editorial decisions, helping teams strengthen engagement, build loyalty, and support sustainable reader revenue.

1. Measure meaningful engagement

Focus on engagement metrics that reflect reader value rather than raw traffic. 

Use audience analytics, including engagement metrics, scroll tracking, heatmaps, and conversion funnels, to understand how readers interact with stories, where they stop reading, what encourages them to explore further, and which journeys lead to registrations or subscriptions.

2. Give editorial teams better data, not just more data

Analytics should support stronger editorial decisions, rather than solely report performance. That means giving teams access to the right data, rather than overloading them with information they can’t use or don’t need. 

Before adding a metric or report to an editorial dashboard, ask three questions:

• Is it relevant? Does this data support an editorial or commercial objective?
• Is it insightful? Does it explain why content performed the way it did, not just what happened?
• Is it actionable? Will it influence future coverage, content formats, or reader journeys?

3. Invest in what keeps readers coming back

Use audience insights to identify the topics, formats, and experiences that encourage readers to return. 

Prioritize the content, formats, and experiences that build regular reading habits, strengthen loyalty, and create more opportunities for registration and subscription.

Evaluate your publishing platform against today’s editorial challenges

Editorial strategy is only part of the equation. The right newsroom technology should make it easier to put these recommendations into practice.

Use the questions below to assess whether your current platform supports the requirements identified in the latest Reuters Digital News Report.

Reuters insight	Can your publishing platform enable…
Readers discover content through more entry points than ever before.	Related content, topic pages, and content recommendations to be presented consistently across articles.
Readers consume news in different ways, with expectations shaped by social platforms.	Flexible templates and content structures that support different reading experiences without requiring custom development.
Readers value explanation and context, with AI users particularly using chatbots to ask follow-up questions and better understand stories.	Non-tech teams to add explainers, timelines, FAQs, and related content to articles quickly and consistently.
Video continues to grow as a way of consuming news.	Editors to combine text, video, audio, and interactive content without developer support.
AI in publishing is becoming another way for readers to discover and interrogate news.	Structured content that’s easy for AI systems to interpret while preserving editorial context.
Readers want visible reassurance that information is credible.	Templates and workflows that make trust signals a consistent part of every article.
Flat subscription growth places greater emphasis on understanding audience behavior.	Actionable analytics that help editorial teams understand engagement, loyalty, and subscription performance.

Modernizing your publishing operations with WP Engine Newsroom

The Reuters Digital News Report makes one thing clear – reader expectations will continue to evolve. Publishers preparing for the future of digital publishing need editorial operations that can adapt without slowing story production or increasing technical overhead.

WP Engine Newsroom is designed to help editorial teams respond faster, maintain high editorial standards, and continuously improve the reader experience through configurable workflows, built-in governance, and actionable insights.

Support faster editorial workflows

Breaking news, live updates, and evolving stories demand publishing workflows that improve time-to-publish without compromising editorial standards.

WP Engine Newsroom brings story creation, collaboration, review, and publishing together in a single workspace. 

Live News helps editors publish chronological updates as stories develop.

Teams can manage approvals, feedback, and revisions through assignable reviews, workflow statuses, and visual revisions, without relying on email or disconnected tools.

Unpublished Edits allow teams to safely update live stories without publishing changes before they’re ready.

Connect editorial, product, and audience teams

The responsibility of delivering great reader experiences doesn’t just rest on editorial teams. Product, commercial, design, and audience teams all need visibility into the publishing process, with the tools to collaborate without creating additional handoffs or slowing story production.

Newsroom brings publishing, collaboration, and audience insights together in one platform. 

Secure previews and DAM integrations help teams review and enrich stories, while integrated analytics help editorial and audience teams understand how readers engage with content and identify opportunities to improve performance.

Build on a platform that can evolve

Publishing requirements won’t stand still, and neither should the platforms that support them. 

Whether responding to new reader behaviors, launching new story formats, or supporting multi-channel publishing across brands, editorial teams need a platform that can adapt without requiring extensive redevelopment.

Building on WordPress for publishers, WP Engine Newsroom provides the flexibility to evolve over time through structured content modeling, configurable workflows, multi-site publishing, integrated analytics, and AI-powered reader experiences.

Combined with built-in governance and enterprise-grade delivery, it gives publishers the flexibility to respond to changing reader behaviors, support new ways of storytelling, and build editorial operations ready for what comes next.

Modernize your publishing operations

As reader behaviors continue to evolve, publishers need editorial platforms that can adapt without compromising speed, governance, or quality. See how enterprise publishers create, govern, publish, and optimize content from a single editorial platform.

Explore WP Engine Newsroom

FAQs on the Reuters Digital News Report 2026 findings

How can editorial teams adapt to AI-assisted search without losing direct site traffic?

Instead of competing with AI discovery tools, publishers should optimize for how AI digests information. By building explainers, timelines, and Q&As directly into stories, newsrooms can answer follow-up questions on-page and keep inquisitive readers from leaving for an AI chatbot. 

Why are legacy CMS platforms failing to support modern reader revenue models?

With subscription growth flattening, publishers can no longer rely solely on paywalls or surface-level pageviews. Legacy platforms lack integrated analytics, leaving editorial teams blind to the specific content experiences that actually drive long-term engagement and reader loyalty. 

How should enterprise publishers audit their CMS against changing reader behaviors?

Publishing leaders should evaluate whether their platform enables operational speed or creates technical bottlenecks. Audit whether non-technical editors can launch visual formats, live updates, and background explainers without developer support, while automatically embedding trust signals like author bios and update timestamps across every piece.

What operational changes are needed when every article becomes a primary entry point?

Because readers arrive directly via social, search, and AI links, every article must act as a standalone landing page. Newsrooms need modular publishing templates that provide instant story context, while cross-functional teams use shared audience data to continuously optimize entry points.

How can publishers make trust visible without adding more work for editorial teams?

Trust must be built directly into publishing workflows rather than left to individual editors. Using standardized templates with automated author profiles, source attributions, AI disclosures, and update notices ensures consistent credibility across every story without slowing down production. 

The post Digital News Report 2026: Next Steps for Enterprise Publishers appeared first on WP Engine®.

This guide covers how to structure and deploy a Composer-based site to WP Engine using GitHub Actions, including Bedrock-specific notes.

Benefits of Using Composer for WordPress

Composer is a dependency management tool in PHP that offers several advantages for WordPress development:

• Dependency Management: Easily manage WordPress core, plugins, themes, and PHP packages.
• Version Control: Keep track of exact versions of all dependencies, ensuring consistency across environments.
• Automation: Automate updates and deployments, reducing manual errors.
• Cleaner Repositories: Avoid committing vendor files or plugin code, keeping your repository clean and focused on custom code.

By leveraging Composer, you can create a more maintainable and scalable WordPress project.

Managing Plugins and Themes with WPackagist

WPackagist mirrors the WordPress.org plugin and theme directories as Composer packages, allowing you to manage them as dependencies.

To use WPackagist:

1. Add WPackagist as a repository in your composer.json:

{
  "repositories": [
    {
      "type": "composer",
      "url": "https://wpackagist.org"
    }
  ]
}

2. Require plugins or themes using the wpackagist-plugin or wpackagist-theme prefixes:

{
  "require": {
    "wpackagist-plugin/advanced-custom-fields": "^6.0",
    "wpackagist-theme/twentytwentysix": "*"
  }
}

3. Run composer install to install the specified plugins and themes.

This approach ensures that your plugins and themes are version-controlled and can be easily updated or rolled back as needed.

Project Structure Considerations

Typical Composer-based sites move the WordPress core files to a different directory, for example /web or /public and with that the wp-content directory housing the plugins and themes will move there too. However, this is a different structure expected by WP Engine as a managed hosting platform. Bedrock also organizes WordPress files differently than the traditional structure expected by WP Engine.

Bedrock Structure:

├── composer.json
├── composer.lock
├── config/
├── web/
│   ├── app/            # wp-content equivalent
│   ├── wp/             # WordPress core
│   ├── index.php
│   └── wp-config.php
└── .env

WP Engine Expected Structure:

├── wp-content/
├── wp-includes/
├── wp-admin/
├── index.php
├── wp-config.php
...

To deploy a Composer or Bedrock-based site to WP Engine, you’ll need to restructure your project during the deployment process to match WP Engine’s expectations.

Deployment with GitHub Actions

Use WP Engine’s official GitHub Action to automate deployments. This approach syncs your wp-content/ directory and runs Composer during the build step.

Standard Composer Setup

For sites using Composer with a standard WordPress structure:

name: Deploy to WP Engine

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Setup PHP
        uses: shivammathur/setup-php@v2
        with:
          php-version: '8.2'
          tools: composer:v2

      - name: Install Composer dependencies
        run: composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader --prefer-dist

      - name: Deploy to WP Engine
        uses: wpengine/github-action-wpe-site-deploy@v3
        with:
          WPE_SSHG_KEY_PRIVATE: ${{ secrets.WPE_SSHG_KEY_PRIVATE }}
          WPE_ENV: your-environment-name
          SRC_PATH: wp-content/
          REMOTE_PATH: wp-content/
          FLAGS: -azvr --inplace --delete --exclude='uploads'

Including Composer Dependencies (Optional)

If your plugins or themes require PHP packages from vendor/, you’ll need to include it in the deployment. Since only wp-content/ is synced to WP Engine, copy vendor into wp-content/ and add a mu-plugin to load the autoloader:

- name: Install Composer dependencies
        run: composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader --prefer-dist

      - name: Prepare vendor for deployment
        run: |
          mkdir -p wp-content/mu-plugins

          # Create autoloader mu-plugin
          cat > wp-content/mu-plugins/00-autoloader.php << 'EOF'
          <?php
          /**
           * Plugin Name: Composer Autoloader
           * Description: Loads the Composer autoloader.
           */
          if (file_exists($autoloader = dirname(__DIR__) . '/vendor/autoload.php')) {
              require_once $autoloader;
          }
          EOF

          # Copy vendor into wp-content for deployment
          cp -r vendor wp-content/

      - name: Deploy to WP Engine
        ...

Composer’s autoloader uses relative paths, so it works correctly from wp-content/vendor/.

Bedrock Setup

For Bedrock projects, you’ll need to restructure from web/app/ to wp-content/ during the build.

Bedrock normally loads the Composer autoloader via its wp-config.php. Since WP Engine manages wp-config.php, the workflow below creates a mu-plugin to load it instead. The 00- prefix ensures it loads before other mu-plugins.

FLAGS: -azvr --inplace --delete --exclude='uploads'

Setup Requirements

1. SSH Key: Add your WP Engine SSH private key as a repository secret named WPE_SSHG_KEY_PRIVATE. Generate via WP Engine User Portal > SSH Keys.
2. Environment Name: Replace your-environment-name with your WP Engine environment name.
3. Branch Triggers: Adjust the branches trigger as needed (e.g., main for production, staging for staging).

Important Notes

• WordPress core: WP Engine manages core files. Only deploy your wp-content/ or equivalent.
• Uploads: Media uploads are not included in deployments. Use SFTP or WP Engine’s backup/restore tools.
• Vendor directory: Required for Bedrock to enable the mu-plugin directory loader and any Composer dependencies. Include the 00-autoloader.php mu-plugin to load it.
• Environment variables: Bedrock uses .env files. Ensure environment-specific config is handled appropriately for WP Engine.
• First deploy: After your first deployment, log in to WordPress and activate your theme. The deploy uses --delete which removes the default theme, so you’ll need to activate the theme you deployed.

Further Reading

• WP Engine GitHub Action
• WPackagist

1. WP Engine is a proud member and supporter of the community of WordPress® users. The WordPress® trademarks are the intellectual property of the WordPress Foundation, and the Woo® and WooCommerce® trademarks are the intellectual property of WooCommerce, Inc. Uses of the WordPress®, Woo®, and WooCommerce® names in this website are for identification purposes only and do not imply an endorsement by WordPress Foundation or WooCommerce, Inc. WP Engine is not endorsed or owned by, or affiliated with, the WordPress Foundation or WooCommerce, Inc. ︎

The post Deploying a Composer-Based WordPress Site (Including Bedrock) to WP Engine appeared first on WP Engine®.

The bottom line is that no hosting platform is inherently “HIPAA compliant” out of the box without a signed Business Associate Agreement (BAA). 

Furthermore, compliance is never solely the responsibility of your web host. It is a shared responsibility between infrastructure providers and application managers.

Whether you are designing a high-traffic brand platform or architecting a multi-layered digital health ecosystem, this guide breaks down what HIPAA compliant hosting actually requires, where the technical boundaries lie, and how to structure a secure architecture.

What “HIPAA Compliant Hosting” actually means

To understand HIPAA compliant hosting, you first have to understand that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) does not formally certify web hosts. There is no official government seal or stamp that makes a server “HIPAA certified.” 

Instead, hosting compliance means configuring infrastructure to meet the technical standards of the HHS HIPAA Security Rule under a binding legal contract known as a Business Associate Agreement (BAA).

Under HIPAA, any information that identifies a patient and relates to their health condition, provision of care, or payment details is classified as Protected Health Information (PHI). When it’s created, stored, or transmitted digitally, it’s known as Electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI).

When a third-party host processes or stores ePHI, that provider acts as a “Business Associate.” The HIPAA Security Rule requires web infrastructure to enforce controls across three distinct categories:

1. Administrative safeguards: Formal security management processes, threat analysis, access management policies, and ongoing workforce training.
2. Physical safeguards: Physical security measures protecting data center facilities, hardware, and workstation environments against unauthorized access and environmental hazards.
3. Technical safeguards: Technology mechanisms including end-to-end encryption, multi-factor authentication (MFA), role-based access controls, automated session timeouts, and comprehensive audit logging.

The Business Associate Agreement (BAA) is the linchpin of the entire relationship. A BAA is a legally binding agreement that contractually obligates the host to maintain HIPAA-level safeguards and establishes legal liability if a security incident occurs on their infrastructure. Without a signed BAA in place, standard web infrastructure cannot legally store or handle PHI.

When HIPAA applies: PHI touchpoints on healthcare websites and eCommerce

A common misconception in digital marketing is that merely being a healthcare business means every single web page must sit behind a BAA. In reality, HIPAA regulations are triggered by the handling of PHI, not by your industry sector alone.

Understanding where PHI is created, received, transmitted, or stored on your digital properties helps determine which workloads require dedicated, BAA-backed infrastructure and which can run on standard enterprise managed hosting.

eCommerce and transactional flows

Healthcare websites often offer digital commerce such as online pharmacy fulfillment, paid telehealth consultations, or prescription refills. In these cases, there are usually two kinds of private data involved, each with their own privacy standard. 

• Different protocols: While Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) protocols safeguard credit card details, they do not cover clinical data.
• The HIPAA trigger: If a user completes a checkout flow that pairs payment details with a medical prescription, symptom treatment, or specialty care selection, that transaction creates ePHI. The backend processing system, database storage, and confirmation communications must reside within a BAA-backed environment.

Patient portals and member areas

Authenticated user areas are PHI environments by default. This includes patient dashboards, telehealth portals, secure messaging environments, lab result viewers, and document download centers..

• Security requirements: Accessing these areas requires strict technical controls, including forced multi-factor authentication (MFA), granular role-based access management, short session timeout windows, detailed audit logs, and encrypted database connections backed by an executed BAA.

Web forms that collect health information

Web forms are one of the most frequent vectors for accidental HIPAA non-compliance, as they often ask for sensitive health data.

• The risk vector: A simple contact form asking for a name and general inquiry is not typically ePHI. However, the moment a form asks a patient to select a condition, list current medications, upload a medical document, or describe a “chief complaint” during appointment booking, the entry becomes ePHI.
• Compliance rule: Once a form captures personal health details tied to an identifiable individual, the form handler, backend database, notification email routing, and hosting server fall directly under the jurisdiction of HIPAA.

Key Rule: Any touchpoint on your digital presence that handles ePHI must live in an isolated, BAA-backed hosting environment. Non-PHI surfaces, such as public marketing sites and content hubs, can run on a separate managed platform built for scale and performance.

Why standard shared hosting falls short for regulated data

For organizations dealing with sensitive or regulated data, relying on entry-level web architecture presents severe shared hosting security risks. Standard shared hosting places hundreds or thousands of distinct websites on a single physical server, sharing the same underlying RAM, CPU, and storage disk.

From an architectural standpoint, shared hosting falls short for regulated health data in several ways:

• Lack of tenant isolation: Basic shared hosting platforms often lack kernel- or OS-level isolation between accounts. If another tenant on a shared server experiences a remote code execution or severe malware infection, attackers can potentially leverage local privilege escalation to access neighboring site directories on the same system. Beyond data leakage, shared resource allocation means a DDoS attack targeted at any neighboring site can over-utilize server capacity and bring down your application.
• Resource contention: Heavy traffic spikes or denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks aimed at a neighboring site on a shared host can paralyze your application, leading to downtime that violates healthcare availability standards.
• Absence of granular logging: Shared hosting platforms rarely offer the immutable access logging, file integrity monitoring, or forensic audit trails mandatory under HIPAA Technical Safeguards.
• No BAA support: Budget shared hosting providers operating at scale will not sign a Business Associate Agreement, legally precluding them from hosting ePHI.

The shared responsibility model: What the host covers vs. what you own

Maintaining compliance across cloud infrastructure operates on a shared responsibility model. Working with a secure hosting partner does not delegate overall legal accountability away from your organization; ultimate responsibility always remains with the covered entity or business associate running the application.

Host responsibility: Infrastructure layer

Your hosting provider manages physical facility access, hardware integrity, hypervisor isolation, network edge protection, underlying server OS patching, and network-level DDoS mitigation. They ensure that physical servers cannot be accessed by unauthorized personnel and that platform-level threat monitoring remains active 24/7.

Typically, the host is responsible for:

• Physical data center security and hardware maintenance
• OS patching, network firewalls, and hypervisor isolation
• Edge security, managed WAF, and platform threat monitoring
• Hardware backups, physical redundancy, and core uptime SLAs

Your responsibility: Application layer 

Your organization is responsible for everything built on top of that infrastructure. This includes keeping WordPress core code, themes, and plugins updated, implementing strong password policies and MFA for site administrators, auditing third-party code for vulnerabilities, configuring SSL/TLS settings, restricting administrative access, and maintaining internal employee training programs.

Typically, your organization is responsible for:

• App configuration, plugins, and theme code
• User access controls, passwords, and MFA enforcement
• End-to-end application encryption controls
• Workforce HIPAA training and internal security policies
• Execution of Business Associate Agreements (BAAs)

What to look for in HIPAA compliant hosting 

Evaluate potential hosts using a detailed operational assessment when auditing infrastructure providers for your healthcare applications. Here are the core questions to ask any provider, mapped directly to compliance standards:

1. Will you sign a Business Associate Agreement (BAA)?

• Why it matters: This is the non-negotiable entry qualification for handling ePHI. If a host answers “no,” the discussion ends there.
• What a strong answer looks like: We execute custom BAAs covering our infrastructure, hardware, data centers, and managed hosting services for qualified health enterprise workloads.

2. How is data encrypted, in transit and at rest?

• Why it matters: HIPAA Technical Safeguards require robust cryptography to ensure health records are unreadable if intercepted or accessed by unauthorized actors.
• What a strong answer looks like: Data in transit is enforced using TLS 1.2 or TLS 1.3 encryption, with HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) enabled. Data at rest uses modern AES-256 encryption across database volumes, file storage systems, and offsite backup repositories.

3. What access controls, MFA, and audit logging are in place?

• Why it matters: You must track who accessed ePHI, when it was modified, and where data moved during a session.
• What a strong answer looks like: The platform provides mandatory Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) across user dashboards, single sign-on (SSO) integration, role-based access management, automated inactivity session timeouts, and centralized, write-once audit logs stored securely for security audits.

4. How are backups and disaster recovery handled?

• Why it matters: HIPAA requires a formal contingency plan including data backup, disaster recovery, and emergency mode operation plans.
• What a strong answer looks like: Automated, encrypted nightly backups stored in geographically redundant locations, with one-click restoration procedures and defined Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO).

5. What is your security policy and which audits do you pass?

• Why it matters: Independent, audited proof provides verification that platform controls function reliably under stress.
• What a strong answer looks like: Annual third-party audits confirming SOC 2 Type II compliance and ISO 27001:2022 certification, demonstrating audited operational excellence across security, availability, and confidentiality domains.

6. Do you offer isolated or dedicated environments?

• Why it matters: Preventing cross-tenant data leakage is essential when hosting critical health systems.
• What a strong answer looks like: Dedicated single-tenant architecture, virtual private cloud (VPC) isolation, or containerized environments that prevent hardware and memory space sharing with untrusted third parties.

7. What is the uptime SLA and who is accountable during an outage?

• Why it matters: Patient care platforms demand high availability to maintain access to critical services.
• What a strong answer looks like: Financially backed Service Level Agreements (SLAs) guaranteeing 99.95% to 99.99% uptime, paired with 24/7 technical incident response teams.

8. How responsive is support when something goes wrong?

• Why it matters: During critical events, you need direct access to trained security engineers rather than generic help queues.
• What a strong answer looks like: 24/7/365 global technical support staffed by security specialists, accessible via phone and priority ticketing, with short initial response time guarantees.

Certifications that signal a trustworthy provider

Understanding how various regulatory and industry standards fit together helps clear up common marketing confusion. While certifications validate operational mature practices, they serve distinct compliance purposes:

HIPAA compliance checklist for healthcare websites and eCommerce

Use this self-assessment checklist when auditing your web architecture, technical requirements, and hosting relationships before processing sensitive data:

Hosting for regulated industries and where WP Engine fits

Healthcare companies and enterprise brands operating in regulated spaces frequently implement a split architecture strategy. This model optimizes security, compliance budgets, and marketing flexibility by separating clinical systems from public brand assets.

Clinical workloads 

Systems handling active ePHI require dedicated infrastructure built for healthcare compliance. These workloads must be deployed within an isolated, BAA-signing cloud environment designed specifically for clinical data processing.

Typical clinical workloads include:

• Patient portals and member dashboards
• Telehealth streaming and consultation apps
• Electronic health record (EHR) integrations
• PHI-bearing intake forms and medical questionnaires

Public brand presence 

Your primary public web presence does not touch ePHI and can run separately on a secure, managed enterprise platform optimized for speed, reliability, global distribution, and content workflows.

Typical public brand surfaces include:

• Marketing sites and primary brand hubs
• Content hubs and educational blogs
• News portals and media pages
• Recruitment and career pages
• Investor relations resources

Where WP Engine fits

Transparency is central to building effective enterprise architecture. WP Engine’s Acceptable Use Policy strictly prohibits the storage or processing of Protected Health Information (as defined under HIPAA) and cardholder data covered under PCI DSS regulations. WP Engine does not sign BAAs and should not be used as a repository for patient health records.

Instead, WP Engine serves as a secure managed web platform for hosting your public-facing, non-PHI digital properties. By hosting public marketing and content surfaces on WP Engine, healthcare organizations gain access to enterprise security features without complicating their backend clinical environments:

• Audited security certifications: Standardized operations independently audited for both SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001:2022 compliance.
• Enterprise threat mitigation: Integrated security features, with the option to add Global Edge Security for a managed Web Application Firewall (WAF), advanced DDoS mitigation, and continuous threat monitoring. 
• Granular identity and access controls: Support for Single Sign-On (SSO) integration and flexible Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) options across portal accounts, providing security-minded organizations strict control over administrative user access.
• High-availability performance: Backed by an uptime SLA of 99.95% (and enhanced SLA of 99.99% for custom high-availability and failover architectures), ensuring marketing platforms perform smoothly under heavy traffic or during unexpected data center outages.
• Automated data protection: Nightly automated backups, one-click restoration, and automated system updates.
• GDPR compliance alignment: Support for handling standard non-PHI personal data (such as marketing newsletter subscriptions, analytics, and contact submissions) in compliance with global privacy regulation standards like GDPR.

By separating non-PHI public brand platforms from backend clinical databases, health organizations maintain compliance standards while delivering fast, user-friendly digital experiences. You can read more about how enterprise brands leverage managed web architecture in our collection of customer case studies.

Ready to optimize your healthcare web presence?

Running a regulated-industry site and not sure what belongs where? Talk to a WP Engine specialist about hosting your non-PHI web presence on our SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001:2022 certified platform. Learn more about our secure hosting solutions.

FAQs about HIPAA-compliant hosting

What makes web hosting HIPAA compliant?

Web hosting achieves HIPAA compliance when infrastructure meets the technical, physical, and administrative standards of the HIPAA Security Rule and is backed by a signed Business Associate Agreement (BAA). Technical controls include data encryption at rest and in transit, strict role-based access management, continuous audit logging, regular vulnerability assessments, and isolated infrastructure environments designed to prevent unauthorized ePHI exposure.

Do I need a BAA with my hosting provider?

Yes. If your hosting environment stores, processes, or transmits Electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI) on behalf of a covered entity or business associate, an executed Business Associate Agreement (BAA) is legally required under federal law. Without a signed BAA, infrastructure cannot be considered HIPAA compliant, regardless of its technical security controls or independent certifications.

Is shared hosting safe for sensitive or regulated data?

No. Standard shared hosting environments lack the isolation required to protect regulated health data securely. Because multiple tenants share server hardware, memory, and operating systems, shared hosting introduces risks of cross-site contamination, resource contention, and unauthorized access. Furthermore, standard budget shared hosting providers generally refuse to execute the Business Associate Agreements required for handling ePHI.

How does HIPAA apply to healthcare eCommerce or telehealth sites?

HIPAA applies to eCommerce and telehealth platforms whenever transactional flows collect, transmit, or store details linked to an identifiable patient’s medical care, treatment, or prescription history. While payment processors manage cardholder details under PCI-DSS, any accompanying health details—such as treatment selection or intake forms—constitute ePHI and require a BAA-backed hosting environment.

Can my patient portal and marketing site run on the same host?

While technically possible, separating them using a split architecture is often best practice. Hosting patient portals on dedicated, BAA-backed infrastructure ensures ePHI compliance, while running your non-PHI public marketing site on a specialized, managed enterprise host maximizes performance, scalability, and content management efficiency without adding regulatory overhead to your marketing workflows.

Does my web host affect GDPR compliance?

Yes. GDPR governs how personal data (names, IP addresses, emails) belonging to EU residents is collected, processed, and stored. Your web host impacts GDPR compliance through data center locations, server-level encryption, data processing agreements (DPAs), and edge security measures. Ensure your provider offers adequate privacy controls and compliant data transfer mechanisms if handling European web traffic.

What should regulated industries look for in a hosting provider?

Regulated industries should prioritize hosting providers that maintain independently audited certifications (such as SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001:2022), strong edge security (managed WAF, DDoS protection), end-to-end encryption, automated backups, high availability SLAs, and clear Acceptable Use Policies detailing supported data workloads and regulatory boundaries.

1. WP Engine is a proud member and supporter of the community of WordPress® users. The WordPress® trademark is the intellectual property of the WordPress Foundation. Uses of the WordPress® trademarks in this website are for identification purposes only and do not imply an endorsement by WordPress Foundation. WP Engine is not endorsed or owned by, or affiliated with, the WordPress Foundation. ︎

The post Is Your Website HIPAA Compliant? 8 Questions to Ask Your Hosting Provider appeared first on WP Engine®.

This guide is designed for agencies and developers who regularly recommend or resell web hosting to clients. The core problem is that clients see a premium price tag and immediately balk because they don’t understand what that money actually buys in the context of a professional hosting business.

By shifting the conversation away from technical jargon and toward business value, you can give your clients the exact language and frameworks they need to make an informed decision. For your agency, mastering this pitch unlocks predictable monthly recurring revenue, drives up customer lifetime value (LTV), minimizes costly support escalations, and builds a distinct competitive edge in a crowded market.

Understand what your clients are actually worried about

Clients rarely object to price simply because something is “expensive.” Instead, they object because they can’t see the underlying value. If a client equates a premium managed platform with a basic budget server or unmanaged VPS, any price difference feels like an arbitrary upcharge.

To handle these objections effectively, you must first unpack what your clients are truly worried about:

• “I already have a hosting company, and they’re not charging me much.” The Reality: They don’t see the hidden costs of managing that cheap provider, such as manual troubleshooting, slow speeds, or unexpected downtime.
• “I don’t want to migrate / I can’t afford the downtime.” The Reality: This stems from a pure fear of change and past trauma from messy, broken migrations.
• “Our current setup is working fine.” The Reality: This is a state of false security. They often don’t realize their current site is being held together by duct tape, luck, and outdated plugins.
• “Can I get the same thing cheaper elsewhere?” The Reality: This is a straight price-to-price comparison made in the absence of value context.

Recognize that these are not structural rejections of price, but expressions of anxiety regarding change and risk. Managed hosting doesn’t just solve server issues. It solves change anxiety. Your messaging needs to convince prospects to invest in stability and risk mitigation rather than just digital storage space.

Frame the value in client outcomes, not features

Your clients probably don’t care about advanced caching layers, isolated resources, or global CDN edge networks. They care about business continuity, security, and not having to think about their website. To capture their attention, you need to translate technical features into clear business outcomes.

Uptime = revenue protection

Downtime directly drains a business’s bottom line. According to recent IT infrastructure cost studies by independent research groups like ITIC, even a single hour of downtime can cost upwards of $50,000 for mid-sized enterprises, and can easily clear $300,000 for high-volume eCommerce platforms.

Premium managed hosting offers up to 99.99% uptime. This means managed hosting essentially functions as business insurance, and that’s how you should frame it.

• Your messaging: “Our hosting partner guarantees this level of uptime. This means your digital storefront stays open, and you can focus on driving sales instead of managing server crashes.”

Security = liability reduction

A security breach is an incredibly expensive ordeal involving legal fees, customer notification costs, reputation damage, and potential compliance fines.

A quality managed host mitigates this liability by handling automatic core updates, proactive threat monitoring, Web Application Firewalls (WAF), automated daily backups, and compliance readiness out of the box.

• Your messaging: “We host your site on a dedicated, hardened environment where server-level threat detection and security protocols are active 24/7. We monitor this infrastructure closely so your customer data remains locked down without you having to lift a finger.”

Performance = conversions & SEO

Every fractional second of latency leads to lost revenue. Large-scale web performance data from Google’s Core Web Vitals case studies routinely proves that faster page load speeds directly correspond to lower bounce rates and higher conversion rates. Furthermore, Google officially states in their Search Central documentation that they use these page experience metrics as a core ranking factor. Performance equals business growth.

Managed hosting platforms deliver built-in CDNs, advanced object caching, server-level optimization, and native Core Web Vitals support.

• Your messaging: “Your site will load faster, your customers will stay longer, and your business will rank higher in search results.”

Peace of mind = more time, less stress

As a business owner, time is the ultimate currency. Managed hosting delivers a “set it and forget it” environment. That means no emergency 2:00 AM phone calls regarding server failures, no broken plugin conflicts, and no missed critical security patches.

• Your messaging: “Managed hosting buys you absolute peace of mind and frees up your internal team to focus entirely on running your actual business.”

Address the price objection head-on

Don’t shy away from the price tag. Instead, concede the point immediately. Managed hosting does cost more than cheap, shared hosting, and it’s still a good financial call to choose managed hosting. It’s less about what you spend, and more about what you actually get for the money. 

To help your clients visualize this, frame the comparison directly through a total cost of ownership (TCO) lens:

Shared hosting quickly becomes incredibly expensive when you look at the true costs. Those costs include uptime risks, security liabilities, performance losses, and time spent by internal teams on set up, management, etc. 

The price difference of a managed platform pays for itself very quickly if it prevents even a single security incident or minor downtime event. For a deeper look at total cost of ownership, check out our in-depth guide to what’s hiding beneath your hosting expenses.

When clients push back on price

When a client resists, reframe the conversation away from line-item expenses using these three response frameworks:

1. Reframe to risk: “Let’s look at what happens if your site goes down for just one business afternoon during a promotion. How much revenue is at risk? That potential loss is what we are protecting against.”
2. Reframe to value: “Cheaper hosting includes standard queue support. WP Engine’s managed solution includes 24/7 access to WordPress specialists who know the platform inside and out. That direct expertise saves days of frustration.”
3. Reframe to TCO: “With budget hosting, you are simply shifting the cost into manual developer hours, third-party security plugins, and operational stress. Let’s do the math on what your team’s time is worth.”

Remember, you aren’t selling server space. You are selling protection, speed, and time.

Position managed hosting as part of your ongoing care

Bypass the hosting debate entirely by leveraging relationship framing. Stop presenting hosting as a disconnected, optional utility bill. Instead, frame managed hosting as a foundational component of your agency’s long-term partnership and site care commitment.

Instead of passing a raw hosting invoice directly to the client, integrate it into your monthly retainer:

• Your messaging: “We are deploying your website onto a secure, high-performance managed hosting platform as a native component of our ongoing Site Care Plan. By embedding this environment directly into our package, our agency takes full, end-to-end responsibility for ensuring your site remains fast, secure, and fully operational without you ever having to manage it.”

Benefits to your agency:

• Higher retention: Clients are less likely to cancel a care plan when their site runs flawlessly month after month.
• Fewer escalations: Passing infrastructure management to an enterprise-grade platform means fewer emergency support tickets for your internal team.
• Predictable overhead: Managing multiple client sites on a consolidated, familiar platform dramatically streamlines your internal operations.

Use data and case studies to anchor the pitch

Ground your sales conversations in verified data points. When pitching your clients, leverage insights pulled directly from industry benchmarks and data points featured in the WP Engine 2025 Website Traffic Trends Report:

• The value of uptime: Contrast the devastating hourly downtime costs of self-hosted, unmonitored architectures against high-availability setups.
• The value of speed: Highlight how modern web users abandon sites that take longer than two seconds to load, turning page speed directly into a customer acquisition tool.
• The value of security: Data indicates that a vast majority of CMS security breaches stem from unpatched software components. Managed environments eliminate this vulnerability via automated patching systems.
• The value of agency time: Agencies save dozens of hours per client each month by offloading environment configuration, SSL generation, and server-side optimizations.

To make the pitch concrete, show your prospects how actual businesses have grown after moving their WordPress websites to a managed environment. You can walk clients through these specific, documented case studies:

Case study 1: Fat Beehive slashes maintenance overhead

The digital agency Fat Beehive was spending a massive amount of unbillable developer time handling manual core and plugin updates across their client portfolio.

• The solution: They migrated over 80 client websites onto WP Engine’s dedicated infrastructure.
• The result: By leveraging automated updates, the agency slashed their monthly plugin maintenance time from 80 hours down to just 5 hours, a massive 94% reduction in manual overhead. This returned two full weeks of developer time back to the agency and eliminated unexpected client downtime.

Case study 2: MyWork grows MRR through bundled site care

Rather than trying to sell hosting as an isolated line item, Australian digital agency MyWork completely transformed its pricing model to focus on long-term client partnerships.

• The solution: MyWork stopped selling hosting on its own and began bundling premium managed hosting directly into unified, monthly site care packages.
• The result: They built a highly predictable, hands-off recurring revenue stream for the agency while giving clients a robust, fast site monitored by WordPress experts. It turned hosting from a friction-filled sales pitch into an easy, high-value upsell.

Case study 3: Digital Yalo cuts support ticket volume

Creative agency Digital Yalo was tasked with managing a highly fragmented digital ecosystem for B&G Foods, which spanned dozens of independent brand sites hosted on disparate servers.

• The solution: They consolidated and migrated over 40 distinct brand websites onto WP Engine’s single managed enterprise platform.
• The result: By standardizing the portfolio on a reliable, optimized infrastructure, the agency achieved a 48% decrease in support and maintenance requests over three years, allowing their internal team to resolve a backlogged ticket queue and shift their energy toward client growth strategies.

Objection handling script

Having a standardized strategy empowers your team to handle client hesitation smoothly, confidently, and without defensive posturing.

“We’re happy with our current hosting.”

• The client’s real worry: “If it isn’t broken, why are you making me change it and spend more money?”
• The adjustment: Acknowledge their stability, but gently point out that “working” is not the same as “optimized for growth.”

Response: “I’m really glad to hear your site is stable right now—that’s a great baseline. What we often see, though, is that a site can feel like it’s working fine, but beneath the surface, slow load times are quietly costing you search rankings and sales. Let us run a free, quick performance and security audit on your current setup. If everything is truly perfect, we’ll tell you. But if there are hidden bottlenecks slowing down your customers, you’ll want to know.”

“We can’t afford to migrate.”

• The client’s real worry: “This is going to require hours of my time, my site will break, and I’ll lose business during the transition.”
• The adjustment: Take the burden entirely off their shoulders. Emphasize that your team handles the heavy lifting, and it won’t disrupt their operations.

Response: “I completely understand. Migration sounds like a massive headache that involves downtime and lost business. But here is the good news: we handle the transition from start to finish. We build a duplicate copy of your site in a staging environment, test everything, and make the switch during off-hours so your visitors never see a second of downtime. It requires zero work on your end, and the speed boost goes live immediately.”

“Doesn’t this cost more?”

• The client’s real worry: “I’m looking at a $10 bill vs. a $50+ bill. Why should I pay more for the same website?”
• The adjustment: Move away from abstract corporate terms like “deliberate trade-off” and “brand safety.” Use a simple, real-world comparison regarding emergency costs.

Response: “You’re entirely right—it does cost more upfront. But cheap hosting is a lot like skipping car insurance to save a few bucks. If your site gets hacked or crashes on a busy day, the cost to bring in a developer to clean up the database or recover your data can easily run into thousands of dollars. We look at premium hosting as a protective shield. It pays for itself the very first time it prevents an emergency or keeps your site fast during a traffic spike.”

“Can’t we just add these features to our current host?”

• The client’s real worry: “Why can’t I just install a few free plugins to make my cheap host secure and fast?”
• The adjustment: Introduce the “franken-site” problem. Explain that adding a mountain of plugins or managing complex settings in cPanel creates a fragile system that requires manual maintenance.

Response: “You can certainly try to piece it together with various plugins for security, backups, and caching. But now you have five different tools from five different developers that you have to manually update and troubleshoot. When one of those updates breaks your site, who is going to log in at 2:00 AM to fix it? Managed hosting builds all of this directly into the server. It’s a clean, automated, unified system designed specifically for WordPress, which means fewer plugins to slow down your site and break your layout.”

Building your pitch deck & sales materials

When building out your agency’s sales decks, proposals, or presentation collateral, follow this proven 5-step conversion structure:

1. Lead with the client’s business goal: “You want to scale online operations, increase lead generation, and grow your overall business revenue this year.”
2. Expose the operational risk: “Your current legacy hosting infrastructure is actively bottlenecking that growth through slow load times and hidden stability risks.”
3. Demonstrate the strategic outcome: “Here is exactly how moving to a managed hosting environment delivers stable uptime, elite data security, and lightning-fast user experiences.”
4. Contextualize the true cost: “The premium infrastructure costs $X per month, which effectively pays for itself by capturing traffic that would otherwise bounce due to slow load speeds.”
5. Close with complete commitment: “Our agency handles the platform completely. We take care of the technical heavy lifting so your leadership team can stay focused on your core business.”

Pro-Tip: Always include explicit “Before vs. After” case metrics to provide undeniable visual proof of the upgrade. Focus heavily on site speed improvements, uptime tracking, and reduced support turnaround times.

Why agencies win with managed hosting

Transitioning your client base and portfolio to managed hosting is a core business strategy that can radically improve your agency’s bottom line.

• Substantial profit margins: Consolidating multiple client configurations onto a centralized platform lets you capitalize on bulk pricing structures while earning high-margin recurring revenue.
• Drastically reduced technical debt: Delegating server maintenance to an expert 24/7 support team means your internal developers spend less time dealing with infrastructure alerts and more time working on profitable, billable projects.
• Stronger client retention: Websites that run beautifully, load instantly, and never crash build immense trust. When your work performs flawlessly, clients stay partnered with your agency long-term.
• A distinct competitive advantage: Agencies that position themselves around secure, high-performance managed hosting are often able to differentiate themselves from budget competitors, which can help accelerate client decision-making and open the door to premium, value-based pricing structures.

To maximize these business advantages, smart agencies partner with dedicated systems designed to fuel their growth. Utilizing resources like the WP Engine Agency Platform and leveraging specialized frameworks allows you to scale operations seamlessly.

Ready to package managed hosting as part of your agency offering? WP Engine’s agency partner program includes co-marketing, training, dedicated support for your clients, and competitive margins.

To learn more about how to scale your recurring revenue models, check out the WP Engine Self-Hosting Cost Comparison guide or connect with a team member directly by visiting the WP Engine Contact Page.

1. WP Engine is a proud member and supporter of the community of WordPress® users. The WordPress® trademark is the intellectual property of the WordPress Foundation. Uses of the WordPress® trademarks in this website are for identification purposes only and do not imply an endorsement by WordPress Foundation. WP Engine is not endorsed or owned by, or affiliated with, the WordPress Foundation. ︎

The post How to Sell Your Clients on Managed Hosting for WordPress appeared first on WP Engine®.

WP Engine and GoDaddy are both prominent players in the hosting industry. While GoDaddy serves as a broad, generalist provider offering domain registration and accessible entry-level hosting, WP Engine is a specialized managed platform for websites built on WordPress®¹ software. We will explore their distinct differences in performance architecture, security protocols, developer workflows, and pricing transparency to help you determine which solution best aligns with your long-term operational goals.

In this guide, we break down the differences between WP Engine and GoDaddy, so you can understand which will best suit your unique needs for long-term success.

WP Engine vs. GoDaddy: Which is better for hosting websites built on WordPress?

When comparing these two providers, the best choice depends on your needs. WP Engine is the clear winner for businesses, agencies, and developers who require top-tier performance, robust security, and specialized expert support. Its tools and platform are engineered specifically for mission-critical digital experiences. GoDaddy is a suitable option for first-time website owners or hobbyists who need a simple, low-cost entry point to launch a basic web presence.

Performance and reliability

Both companies offer dependable uptime guarantees and foundational hosting features. However, WP Engine focuses heavily on traffic scalability and server-side optimization, whereas GoDaddy relies on general infrastructure improvements like Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) storage to support a wider variety of content management systems.

WP Engine: Purpose-built performance excellence

WP Engine provides a platform engineered specifically for WordPress sites, making it attractive to agencies and organizations running mission-critical WordPress websites. By dedicating all resources to a single content management system, WP Engine eliminates the technical bloat associated with generalist servers.

Key strengths include:

• Performance architecture: Features the WP Engine proprietary EverCache^® caching system, an optimized cloud infrastructure, and integrated CDN support designed to handle massive traffic spikes.
• Cloudflare integration: Every plan includes Cloudflare’s enterprise-grade CDN features, including DDoS mitigation and edge caching.
• Reliability: Guarantees 99.99% uptime SLA on isolated plans, utilizing architecture that isolates your site resources for ultimate stability and redundancy.
• Developer workflows: Provides one-click staging environments, Git deployments, SSH access, and seamless integration with critical tools like Local and Advanced Custom Fields. 
• Operational efficiency: Includes automatic PHP updates, advanced plugin risk scanning tools, and detailed performance monitoring dashboards to keep your operations running smoothly. Specialized tools like Smart Plugin Manager can automate updates while ensuring changes don’t affect site integrity.

GoDaddy: Accessible convenience and budget-friendly tools

GoDaddy focuses on providing a range of hosting solutions for individuals, small businesses, and first-time website owners. By bundling multiple services together, they lower the technical barrier to entry for users who want a quick, straightforward setup.

Key strengths include:

• Ease of use: GoDaddy offers simple onboarding tools, user-friendly management dashboards, and centralized client site management via the GoDaddy Pro Hub.
• Affordable entry pricing: Features low introductory pricing and bundled services that often include domain registration and basic email functionality.
• Core hosting capabilities: Provides a 99.9% uptime guarantee, automatic updates for core software (on WordPress-specific plans), and infrastructure improvements like NVMe storage across global data centers.
• Performance upgrades: Offers the latest version of PHP with Zend extended long-term support, alongside Object Cache Pro on select tiers to boost baseline speeds.
• Developer accessibility: Includes WP-CLI support, API access for domain and DNS management, and integration with AI generation tools like Airo for rapid site deployment.

GoDaddy vs WP Engine: Speed comparison

WP Engine consistently delivers stronger performance and faster load times due to its platform-level caching and deep optimization. While GoDaddy continues to improve its speed through hardware upgrades and software integrations, it typically cannot match the consistency of a purpose-built managed hosting platform built for WordPress sites.

Security: Proactive defense vs. baseline protection

Both WP Engine and GoDaddy understand that website security is a fundamental requirement for operating safely online. At a baseline level, both providers offer core protections that include essential SSL certificates, automated backups, and basic malware scanning. They each maintain infrastructure designed to keep malicious traffic away from your sensitive data and offer managed security to ensure that vulnerabilities are patched promptly.

However, the primary difference lies in how these security features are packaged and delivered to the end user. WP Engine focuses on proactive security built directly into its platform architecture from day one, including proprietary firewalls to block malicious traffic, 24/7 server-level monitoring, real-time threat detection, and automated installation of  WordPress core/plugin updates. Most importantly, WP Engine helps customers who need to fix a compromised site on its platform at no additional cost. WP Engine’s Global Edge Security is an enterprise-level add-on option for sites that require more rigid security requirements. 

GoDaddy provides a functional security baseline across all hosting. For their Managed Hosting for WordPress plans, malware scanning and removal are included as standard features. However, for users on GoDaddy’s entry-level shared hosting, or those seeking advanced daily scanning and specific firewall rules, supplemental security packages may still be required.

GoDaddy vs WP Engine: Security at a glance

WP Engine provides stronger out-of-the-box security through several features. The platform is designed with proactive bot mitigation at the edge that blocked more than 75 billion malicious requests in 2025 and continues to protect customers. Every plan includes a managed Web Application Firewall, DDoS protection, daily encrypted backups, automated threat detection, and free professional hack remediation in the event of a breach. Furthermore, WP Engine adheres to strict enterprise compliance standards, including SOC 2, SOC 3, and ISO certifications.

While GoDaddy also provides automated daily backups and one-click restores for its Managed Hosting for WordPress users, WP Engine focuses on higher-level proactive bot mitigation and professional hack remediation.

Support: The award-winning difference

Navigating complex technical challenges requires swift, knowledgeable assistance. The support experience is a major differentiator for technical teams and business owners alike. WP Engine’s award-winning support team is composed entirely of experts with WordPress-specific knowledge. When a complex database query fails or a plugin conflict occurs, you are speaking directly to an engineer who understands the underlying architecture. This developer-level guidance minimizes downtime and helps resolve issues in record time. Reviewers consistently commend WP Engine for its exceptional customer support, frequently highlighting the personal, prompt, and knowledgeable assistance they receive.

GoDaddy also provides 24/7 customer support. Their representatives are highly effective at resolving general hosting queries, billing issues, and domain registration questions. Their beginner-friendly assistance is great for those just starting out. However, their generalist support team may lack the deep, code-level expertise needed to resolve advanced issues efficiently. 

Ultimately, WP Engine support is better suited for professional teams that require WordPress-specific knowledge, while GoDaddy support works well for fundamental hosting needs.

Developer workflows and automation

Modern development teams require tools that minimize repetitive tasks and reduce the risk of deploying broken code. A streamlined workflow directly impacts profitability and a developer’s time. WP Engine is designed from the ground up to support modern development workflows, whereas GoDaddy focuses more heavily on accessibility and simplified deployment.

WP Engine empowers developers by providing native development, staging, and production environments and proactive Site Monitoring. WP Engine supports Git-based deployments, SSH access, and CI/CD integrations with tools like BitBucket, CodeShip, and DeployBot. Its robust Customer API and playground make development on the platform more intuitive for professionals who want to automate tasks, integrate with external systems, and maintain sites programmatically. WP Engine also maintains and integrates flawlessly with popular developer tools like Local and Advanced Custom Fields.

GoDaddy provides accessible developer tools centered around the GoDaddy Pro Hub, and includes built-in one-click staging environments for Managed Hosting for WordPress plans (Deluxe tier and above). They also offer API automation tools for domain management and WP-CLI support.

Tools and workflow differences

The core difference in workflow tools is depth versus breadth. WP Engine provides deeper developer control, allowing engineers to manipulate environments, automate testing, and manage custom code deployments with precision. The multi-environment workflows (dev, stage, prod) are essential for enterprise reliability. 

While GoDaddy offers one-click staging on its higher-tier Managed WordPress plans, its workflows are generally designed for simplicity and getting sites live quickly rather than managing a complex continuous integration lifecycle. GoDaddy does offer automated CI/CD deployments via GitHub Actions for more complex needs.

Plan differentiation and pricing

Pricing strategies between the two providers reflect their target audiences. GoDaddy is cheaper upfront, often utilizing promotional pricing strategies. This means your initial term might cost only a few dollars per month, making it appealing for strict budgets. Reviewers praise GoDaddy for this easy, user-friendly setup and intuitive management tools that make onboarding straightforward for beginners.

However, those same reviewers also express concern over GoDaddy’s lack of pricing transparency, noting that renewal pricing can increase significantly once the promotional period ends. Additionally, while GoDaddy’s Managed Hosting for WordPress plans include core security, those on basic shared hosting or those seeking advanced site cleanup and premium firewall features through Sucuri may find those services require separate add-ons.

WP Engine pricing reflects its premium Managed Hosting Platform model. While the initial monthly cost is higher, it is built for ultimate predictability, and organizations often find WP Engine pricing more predictable because key features, like enterprise-grade caching, premium developer tools, and advanced security, are built right in. 

Final verdict: Which should you choose?

When you compare GoDaddy vs WP Engine, you are choosing between budget accessibility and specialized expertise.

Choose WP Engine if:

• Performance is critical to your conversion rates and revenue.
• You run business-critical sites built on WordPress software.
• You need advanced developer workflows, tools, and staging environments.
• Enterprise-grade security is a non-negotiable priority.
• You want proactive, specialized support from true CMS experts.

Choose GoDaddy if:

• Budget is your primary concern and you need the lowest entry price.
• You need to purchase domains, email, and hosting together.
• You are building a small personal blog or informational site.
• You want simple, AI-driven setup tools to launch a site quickly.

While GoDaddy provides excellent entry-level convenience and affordability, WP Engine provides unparalleled speed, security, and developer tooling, making it the superior choice for agencies and organizations building sites with WordPress.

Talk to the WP Engine team to see how a true partnership can help you scale without the stress of server management.

FAQs

Is GoDaddy good for hosting websites built on WordPress software?

A: Yes. GoDaddy offers a managed platform with automatic updates, one-click installations, and reliable uptime guarantees, making it highly suitable for smaller sites, personal blogs, and beginners who need a straightforward entry point. Premium, specialized providers, like WP Engine, can offer advanced functionality for mission-critical sites.

How does WP Engine’s pricing approach save me more money and time than GoDaddy’s  in the long run?

WP Engine includes managed performance optimization, proactive security firewalls, and deep technical expertise built directly into its platform. This predictable, all-inclusive pricing can actually lead to a lower total cost of ownership. The out-of-the-box experience of WP Engine plans would require add-ons and upgrades to replicate with a provider like GoDaddy.

Is GoDaddy or WP Engine better for agencies?

WP Engine is typically better suited for agencies due to its unique Agency plans (and Agency Partner Program) that include agency-specific tooling. Features like isolated staging environments, Site Monitoring, local development syncing, and advanced performance architecture allow agencies to manage large client portfolios securely, while GoDaddy works best for simpler deployments and fewer installs.

1. WP Engine is a proud member and supporter of the community of WordPress® users. The WordPress® trademark is the intellectual property of the WordPress Foundation. Uses of the WordPress® trademarks in this website are for identification purposes only and do not imply an endorsement by WordPress Foundation. WP Engine is not endorsed or owned by, or affiliated with, the WordPress Foundation. ︎

The post GoDaddy vs. WP Engine: A Complete Comparison Guide appeared first on WP Engine®.

WP Engine is the world’s leading WordPress-specialized hosting platform, serving thousands of agencies and enterprise brands. It is designed for organizations that require a high-performance, secure environment where experts handle complex server management. Pantheon positions itself as a WebOps platform for teams managing both WordPress and Drupal through a container-based workflow.

In this article, we’ll explore the merits of both platforms, diving into the architecture, security, developer workflows, support, and plan types offered by both providers, so you can decide which is the right option for your needs.

WP Engine vs. Pantheon: Which is better for hosting WordPress sites?

A primary differentiator between these platforms is their core focus. WP Engine is a specialized managed platform built exclusively for sites built on WordPress, which means its entire infrastructure, tools, and staff are dedicated to one ecosystem. This specialization ensures that every support interaction is with a WordPress expert, whereas Pantheon’s focus is divided between WordPress, Drupal, and broader WebOps applications. 

Workflows also represent a key difference in philosophy. Pantheon provides a structured environment that mandates a specific Git-based workflow across Dev, Test, and Live environments. While this ensures strict governance, it can be rigid for some teams. In contrast, WP Engine offers more flexibility. While WP Engine strongly recommends certain best practices, it does not mandate a single, specific deployment pipeline. This allows organizations to choose the workflow that best fits their team’s existing technical skills and internal processes.

Performance and reliability architecture

Performance is often a primary consideration when comparing platforms. Slow load times damage user experience and search rankings, making it essential to improve WordPress speed and performance as much as possible. While both WP Engine and Pantheon use top-tier cloud providers, their optimization layers are distinct.

Pantheon: Horizontal scaling and the Runtime Matrix

Pantheon’s performance is driven by its “Runtime Matrix,” a container-based architecture that replaces traditional virtual machine hosting. Instead of a single-server environment, Pantheon runs sites on a grid of Linux containers, with container count and PHP worker capacity set by plan tier. Anonymous, cacheable traffic is absorbed at the Fastly edge. Adding capacity for authenticated or uncacheable surges means either upgrading the plan or, on Elite, filing a support ticket in advance that Pantheon staff review and provision manually.

A key performance advantage of this model is resource guarantee. Because each site environment is allocated its own dedicated container resources (CPU and RAM), the platform eliminates “performance drift” caused by other sites on the infrastructure. To further optimize delivery, Pantheon integrates a Global CDN and provides object caching via Redis on performance tier plans and above, ensuring that both static assets and database queries are served with minimal latency. 

WP Engine: Purpose-built for speed

WP Engine’s platform is engineered specifically for WordPress workloads. A centerpiece of its speed is EverCache®, a proprietary caching system designed to maintain fast response times during traffic surges. By utilizing platform-level caching, WP Engine reduces database load, allowing sites to scale effortlessly.

The platform also offers a high-performance CDN to ensure fast content delivery worldwide. For online retailers, eCommerce solutions optimize checkout speeds, improve search functionality to drive higher conversion rates, and use automated testing and rollback protection to maintain site stability during updates.

For organizations moving toward decoupled architectures, the WP Engine headless platform provides a specialized environment that delivers near-instant frontend performance without sacrificing the ease of the WordPress CMS.

WP Engine vs. Pantheon: Speed and uptime comparison

Security and platform protection

Pantheon: Security through isolation

Pantheon’s security model is centered on environment isolation. By hosting every site in a dedicated container, Pantheon prevents “noisy neighbor” issues where a security incident on one site could affect others on the same server. This architecture ensures that resources are always available and that the attack surface is limited to the individual container. Pantheon also provides a secure deployment pipeline with integrated version control, ensuring that all code changes are tracked and vetted before moving to the live environment.

WP Engine: Proactive platform security

WP Engine takes a security-by-design approach: enterprise-grade protection is the standard for every site on the platform. This robust standard includes essential features across all plans such as automated daily backups, SSL certificates, bot mitigation at the edge, and managed WordPress core and security updates.  At the infrastructure level, the platform employs disk write protection and proactive threat detection.

This standard security posture is reinforced by the platform’s SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001:2022 certifications, which ensure data practices meet rigorous international standards.

For organizations requiring an even more robust defensive posture, WP Engine offers Global Edge Security as a product extension. This high-performance solution moves protection to the network edge, featuring a robust managed Web Application Firewall (WAF) with WordPress-specific rulesets and advanced DDoS mitigation powered by Cloudflare. By identifying and blocking malicious traffic before it ever reaches the origin server, Global Edge Security adds a sophisticated layer of defense while simultaneously improving site performance through smart traffic routing. 

Global Edge Security also includes traffic classification and control features to power bot management strategies.

Developer workflows and automation

Pantheon: Structured WebOps workflow

Pantheon is a developer-oriented platform that mandates a structured WebOps workflow. Its Multidev feature allows developers to fork environments for individual Git branches, which is particularly useful for large teams with strict DevOps requirements. All projects follow a standardized path through Dev, Test, and Live environments, ensuring that code only reaches production after passing through a regulated deployment pipeline.

WP Engine: Developer workflow and automation

WP Engine focuses on eliminating operational friction through integrated developer tools. By adopting a system that allows teams to build, test, and deploy with greater confidence, organizations can move away from ad-hoc workflows and achieve better code consistency across identical staging and development environments. This automation supports version-controlled deployments via Git and CI/CD integrations while enabling advanced site management through SSH Gateway and WP-CLI. Ultimately, these tools reduce deployment risk by providing a safe, one-click staging-to-production workflow that minimizes potential downtime.

Support: Specialized expertise vs. tiered accessibility

When a mission-critical technical issue arises, the quality of a platform’s support team becomes its most important feature. While both WP Engine and Pantheon provide 24/7 assistance, their models for delivering that expertise differ.

WP Engine: The specialized expert advantage

WP Engine provides 24/7/365 access to a support team composed exclusively of WordPress®¹ experts. Because the platform is built specifically for one ecosystem, its engineers can provide deep, code-level guidance that generalist providers often cannot match. When troubleshooting, users interact with specialists who understand the specific nuances of WordPress®¹ core, themes, and plugins.

According to user reviews on G2, this specialized focus is a primary differentiator. For organizations with high-stakes requirements or high-volume portfolios, WP Engine provides priority, fast-track access to senior experts for both Enterprise customers and members of its Agency Partner Program. This ensures that mission-critical issues are immediately escalated to the most advanced technical teams. Furthermore, Enterprise clients are paired with dedicated Technical Account Managers (TAMs) who provide proactive, strategic oversight to ensure long-term performance and architectural stability.

Pantheon: High-quality tiered support

Pantheon is also highly regarded for its technical support, with G2 reviewers frequently praising the team’s competence in handling complex WebOps and deployment issues. However, Pantheon utilizes a tiered support structure where the level of access and response time is determined by the organization’s plan. 

Pantheon’s support access is set by workspace tier. Silver workspaces get live chat only, with no support tickets. Ticket access starts at Gold. Phone support and emergency tickets are available only to Platinum and Diamond. Pantheon’s documentation also states that its support team does not change customer code, and that code-level debugging is available to Diamond accounts.

This model works well for teams that primarily need platform-level assistance, but it may require a higher investment for those who want the same level of immediate, priority expert access available across the board.

Plan differentiation and pricing

Pricing strategies between WP Engine and Pantheon reflect the companies’ distinct operational philosophies and the technical needs of their target audiences.

Pantheon: Scalable WebOps workspaces 

Pantheon utilizes a workspace-centric model that distinguishes between platform access and individual site hosting. Organizations choose between account tiers, such as Silver or Gold, to unlock specific team collaboration and WebOps features. Once a workspace is established, teams assign individual site plans that scale based on traffic and resource requirements. 

This “pay-for-what-you-use” approach offers high granularity. Teams can adjust capacity to align with their budget and traffic expectations by selecting specific performance tiers for each project. While this provides precise control, it also means that Pantheon pricing can become complex for organizations managing large portfolios, as costs vary based on the specific resource allocation assigned to each individual site.

WP Engine: Feature-inclusive predictability 

In contrast, WP Engine pricing reflects a feature-inclusive Managed Hosting Platform built for predictability and professional scale. Rather than separating platform tools from site hosting, WP Engine includes core enterprise-grade features—including EverCache®, a managed Web Application Firewall (WAF), and multi-environment staging—into the base cost of its plans. 

The value lies in a maintenance model where the platform handles the overhead of infrastructure management and security updates. This all-in-one approach is often more economical for scaling businesses, as it eliminates the need to manage a piecemeal stack of third-party add-ons or dedicate internal engineering hours to routine server maintenance.

Final verdict: Which should you choose?

Choose WP Engine if:

• You require a contractual uptime commitment across your whole portfolio. WP Engine guarantees 99.95% on Essential plans and 99.99% on Core and Enterprise plans. Pantheon publishes a 99.9% service level objective on Basic and Performance plans, which carries no credit remedy, and reserves its 99.95% contractual SLA for Elite.
• You want your developers to focus on innovation rather than server maintenance.
• You need proactive, edge-level security.
• You value a streamlined development workflow that connects local environments to production.

Choose Pantheon if:

• You manage a portfolio of both Drupal and WordPress sites.
• Your team requires a strictly mandated Git-based WebOps workflow.
• You need per-branch ephemeral environments and are already on a Gold workspace or above. Pantheon’s Multidev requires a Gold, Platinum, Diamond, or Agency Partner account and is capped at 10 environments per site.

FAQs

Is Pantheon or WP Engine better for speed?

Both offer high-performance environments. WP Engine’s EverCache and specialized WordPress tuning generally provide faster out-of-the-box load times. Pantheon’s architecture excels at scaling for large traffic volumes.

Why is WP Engine a premium choice for enterprise?

The platform includes managed security, performance optimization, and 24/7 access to expert, WordPress-specific support. This reduces the total cost of ownership by eliminating the need for internal maintenance, allowing your team to focus on high-impact business growth.

1. WP Engine is a proud member and supporter of the community of WordPress® users. The WordPress® trademark is the intellectual property of the WordPress Foundation. Uses of the WordPress® trademarks in this website are for identification purposes only and do not imply an endorsement by WordPress Foundation. WP Engine is not endorsed or owned by, or affiliated with, the WordPress Foundation.
   ︎

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Modern development teams need a platform that delivers raw speed and architectural flexibility, but they also need the benefits that come with managed hosting, such as simplicity and built-in governance controls. The ideal platform takes the burden of infrastructure management off their shoulders so they can focus on building exceptional digital experiences.

If your organization is evaluating its current hosting environment, this guide will help you navigate the landscape through a consultative, data-backed lens, ensuring your next platform choice aligns with your long-term roadmap.

What teams typically look for in a Pantheon alternative

When Enterprise Tech Leads, CTOs, and DevOps teams evaluate a move from Pantheon, they focus on specific criteria that impact both the daily development lifecycle and the organization’s overarching bottom line. The goal is to secure a true platform partnership, not merely an infrastructure provider.

• Scalability with predictable costs: Enterprise budgets require predictability. Teams favor transparent overage models rather than systems with fixed resource tiers that may require manual, permanent plan upgrades during unexpected traffic spikes.
• Enterprise-grade support expectations: Beyond standard chat and ticketing queues, enterprise teams require 24/7/365 access to senior engineers. The ability to pick up the phone during a mission-critical event is a common requirement for high-stakes digital operations.
• Specialized CMS expertise: Pantheon supports multiple frameworks, including Drupal and Next.js. However, some organizations prefer a partner dedicated exclusively to websites built on WordPress®¹, ensuring deeper server-level tuning and highly specific security patching.
• Security & compliance tooling: Robust out-of-the-box features like a managed Web Application Firewall (WAF), DDoS protection, automated backups, and advanced options like High Availability (HA) or Disaster Recovery are non-negotiable for large organizations. For organizations with disaster recovery or uptime requirements, WP Engine offers Failover and High Availability on Core and Enterprise plans.
• Workflow flexibility: Modern technical teams require seamless CI/CD integrations, robust multi-environment (Dev/Stage/Prod) workflows, secure SSH access, and an infrastructure that is ready to support headless or decoupled architectures.
• Platform partnership vs. infrastructure provider: A focus on consultative architectural guidance, technical onboarding, and account management rather than just providing self-serve DevOps tooling.

Pantheon’s strengths and limitations

Pantheon has earned a highly respected reputation for its innovative approach to WebOps. However, certain architectural and business choices may lead teams to seek out alternatives as their organizational needs evolve.

Pantheon strengths

• Strong developer-centric workflows: Their proprietary “Multidev” feature is a standout, allowing teams to spin up parallel development branches for distinct feature testing.
• Containerized architecture: Offers solid uptime and resource isolation through a multitenant container model.
• Git-based deployments: Maintains a strict, version-controlled workflow that keeps codebases exceptionally clean and secure.
• GCP Infrastructure: Leverages the robust power and global network of the Google Cloud Platform.

Where teams may seek a Pantheon alternative

• Budgeting and cost predictability: G2 reviews sometimes highlight the significant cost gaps between Pantheon’s pricing tiers. For organizations with fluctuating traffic, consistently crossing a threshold can trigger a forced move to a much higher-priced resource tier, creating budget unpredictability rather than allowing for flexible, usage-based overages.
• Container architecture complexity: The strict “Pantheon way” of deployment and container management can require a more sophisticated level of technical expertise, which can steepen the learning curve for new developers.
• Limited CMS specialization: Because the platform serves multiple CMS architectures, it lacks some of the highly targeted, granular optimizations found on platforms dedicated entirely to sites built on WordPress.
• Support channels: Direct phone support and immediate access to senior-level technical resources are largely limited to higher-tier enterprise plans.
• eCommerce performance: Teams running highly dynamic stores may seek environments more specifically optimized for the complex database queries required by WooCommerce®¹.
• Performance and data insights: Granular, native performance insights and application monitoring are not always readily available or deeply integrated out-of-the-box without third-party tools.
• Bot traffic management: Teams often look for a partner actively investing in AI and bot mitigation solutions, as they do not want the resources on their hosting plan to be consumed by malicious or non-human traffic.

Top 5 Pantheon alternatives

To help you navigate the market, here is an objective, balanced breakdown of the top platforms that enterprise teams evaluate when moving away from Pantheon.

1. WP Engine

WP Engine is a purpose-built managed platform delivering enterprise-grade performance and proactive security exclusively for websites built on WordPress. WP Engine bills traffic overages at a published rate rather than moving you to a higher plan. It provides deep developer tooling, including native integration with Local, robust CI/CD pipeline support, separate multi-environment legs, and dedicated headless infrastructure. With 24/7/365 expert support (including phone access to senior engineers on professional plans), advanced AI-driven bot mitigation, SOC-2 Type 2 compliance, and actionable site insights, it is the ideal choice for organizations needing both advanced developer workflows and business-critical reliability.

2. Kinsta

Kinsta is a performance-focused managed host that utilizes the Google Cloud Platform’s premium tier infrastructure. It is well-regarded for its modern, user-friendly dashboard (MyKinsta) and developer-friendly environment. Kinsta integrates Cloudflare across all plans, featuring automated Bot Protection with four preset options available. Kinsta is best suited for teams prioritizing raw site speed and an intuitive management experience without the need for extensive enterprise-level governance, advanced bot mitigation, or dedicated technical account management. 

3. Cloudways

Cloudways offers a unique “unmanaged-managed” hybrid, giving developers the flexibility to choose their underlying infrastructure provider (AWS, GCP, or DigitalOcean). This is a strong choice for developer-led teams that want maximum control over their customizable server stack and a pay-as-you-go pricing model. However, it requires significantly more technical setup and lacks the heavy governance, proactive patching, and specialized support depth of a fully managed enterprise platform.

4. WordPress VIP

Designed for specialized enterprise projects, WordPress VIP focuses on standardized governance and compliance. It is often utilized by large media and government organizations with specific security requirements. However, its significantly higher price point and incredibly rigid code-review deployment workflows make it less agile and less ideal for mid-market agencies or standard enterprise marketing teams.

5. SiteGround (Managed service)

While not an enterprise-ready platform in the traditional sense, SiteGround frequently appears across “alternatives” lists due to its extreme cost-effectiveness. It is an excellent choice for smaller teams, personal projects, and lower-complexity sites. However, its shared hosting architecture lacks the multi-site management tools, deep resource isolation, and specialized enterprise support required for complex workloads.

How to evaluate which Pantheon alternative is right for you

Choosing a new hosting partner is a major infrastructural decision. Evaluate your candidates against these critical checkpoints:

• Scaling needs: How does the platform handle extreme traffic surges? Does it offer multi-region traffic management, global edge caching, and elasticity without performance degradation?
• Support model: Determine your internal requirements. Can your team survive on chat-only support, or do you require guaranteed phone access and dedicated senior engineering availability?
• Cost predictability: Clarify precisely how overages are billed. Are required tools (like WAF, automated updates, or staging environments) included or billed as expensive add-ons?
• Security posture: Ensure that DDoS mitigation, managed firewalls, and automated patching are core features.
• Developer workflow match: Ensure platform parity with your current development lifecycle, including CI/CD pipelines, Git-based pushes, and multi-environment staging.
• Platform partnership needs: Decide if your team needs strategic consultation, dedicated onboarding or migration tools, and proactive architectural guidance.
• Technology direction: Assess the platform’s readiness for the future, including API-first architecture, headless deployments, and modern JavaScript frameworks.

When WP Engine is the right alternative

WP Engine is the right fit when your organizational focus shifts from “managing complex container configurations” to “building exceptional digital experiences.” It is the ideal partner when:

• You want traffic overages billed at a published per-visit rate rather than resolved through a permanent plan change.
• You want innovative, AI tooling and bot solutions that proactively protect your bandwidth from being consumed by malicious or non-human traffic.
• You desire granular insights into your site and account performance, leveraging built-in application performance monitoring to optimize your codebase.
• You want multi-channel support, including immediate phone access and senior engineering guidance.
• You require deep ecosystem expertise drawn from hosting thousands of enterprise and agency customers utilizing the WordPress CMS.
• You rely on WooCommerce, where WP Engine offers specialized server-level optimization and proprietary caching for dynamic cart requests.
• You need an advanced security posture, complete with strict governance controls.
• You want a true platform partner that provides architectural guidance, not just a suite of DevOps tooling.

Choose a managed hosting partner for the long term

Selecting a Pantheon alternative is about securing scalable architecture, expert partnership, and predictable growth. It’s not just about copying a specific container workflow onto a new server. As you evaluate providers, base your ultimate decision on your organization’s future roadmap, your governance requirements, and the level of support your team needs to thrive, rather than just today’s baseline performance metrics.

If you are evaluating alternatives to ensure your organization has the scalability, stability, and long-term partnership necessary to succeed, WP Engine’s managed platform offers an enterprise-ready foundation uniquely engineered to support modern growth. Contact us today to discuss how we can help you simplify your operations while scaling securely and reliably.

Pantheon alternatives FAQs

What should enterprise teams prioritize when switching from Pantheon to another platform?

Enterprise teams should prioritize support depth, robust security governance, and cost predictability. The ability to reach expert support via phone during a massive traffic spike is critical. Additionally, understanding how a platform handles traffic overages (so you have transparent, predictable pricing without forced, permanent tier upgrades) is essential for strict budget management.

Are Pantheon’s Multidev-style workflows available on other platforms?

It depends on the platform. For example, WP Engine offers robust multi-environment workflows that allow for separate Development, Staging, and Production instances. Teams that rely on per-branch ephemeral environments should note this is a different model. Pantheon’s Multidev creates an environment per branch, is capped at 10 per site, and requires a Gold workspace or above.

Can I keep my Git-based workflow if I move to a Pantheon alternative?

That depends on the platform you choose. WP Engine supports comprehensive Git-based deployments, but other platforms might not With WP Engine, you can continue to use your preferred version control repositories and CI/CD tools (such as GitHub Actions or GitLab) to push code directly to your new hosting environments, easily maintaining your current workflow automation.

1. WP Engine is a proud member and supporter of the community of WordPress® users. The WordPress® trademarks are the intellectual property of the WordPress Foundation, and the Woo® and WooCommerce® trademarks are the intellectual property of WooCommerce, Inc. Uses of the WordPress®, Woo®, and WooCommerce® names in this website are for identification purposes only and do not imply an endorsement by WordPress Foundation or WooCommerce, Inc. WP Engine is not endorsed or owned by, or affiliated with, the WordPress Foundation or WooCommerce, Inc. ︎

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In this article, I will cover what MCP is, how to work with the Smart Search AI MCP Server, and how it enhances the Smart Search AI plugin, which is available for all WordPress sites.

What is MCP and how does it work?

Model Context Protocol (MCP) is a standardized communication protocol that connects AI models to live, external data sources and tools. While large language models like ChatGPT are incredibly intelligent, their knowledge is limited to their training data and is frozen in time, meaning they can’t access real-time or specific niche data.

By itself, it likely does not know about your company’s latest product specifications, the current stock price, or the content of a blog post you published this morning. MCP is the bridge that closes this gap between the AI’s static knowledge and the dynamic, real-time world.

To understand its role, think of MCP as the USB (Universal Serial Bus) for artificial intelligence. Before USB, connecting a printer, mouse, or keyboard to a computer required a confusing array of different ports and custom drivers. MCP addresses a similar problem in the AI ecosystem. Without a standard, connecting an AI to every single website, database, or internal API would require writing custom, one-off integrations—a complex and inefficient process.

MCP provides that universal standard. It defines a set of simple, predictable rules and commands, allowing any AI model to seamlessly “plug into” any MCP-compliant data source. The AI doesn’t need to know the complex inner workings of your website’s database; it just needs to know how to “speak MCP.” 

Through this protocol, the AI can effectively issue standardized requests like “Search your knowledge base for this term” or “Fetch the contents of this specific page”. In essence, MCP transforms a static, encyclopedic AI into a dynamic, context-aware agent capable of accessing and reasoning about your current content.

Smart Search AI MCP Server

The Smart Search AI MCP Server, which is enabled by default and requires user opt-out, exposes “fetch” and “search” tools that allow external AI models to interact with a website’s public, published content.

Why should you use MCP?

The primary benefit of using MCP is that it allows developers to connect external AI agents, like ChatGPT or Claude, directly to their website’s live content. This empowers them to build advanced AI applications, such as custom chatbots or assistants, that are grounded in real-time, accurate information from their own site instead of the generic, often outdated data the models were trained on.

How it works with WP Engine’s AI Toolkit 

The Smart Search AI MCP Server is a feature of the Smart Search AI service. When you enable it, this server listens for requests that are formatted using the MCP standard. Here’s a typical workflow:

1. A question is asked: A user interacts with an AI application, like a custom chatbot built with Claude or ChatGPT.
2. The AI needs more info: The AI model realizes it needs current information to answer the question accurately. It sees that it has access to an MCP server that offers tools for accessing your website’s data.
3. The AI model sends a network request to your website’s unique MCP server address. For example, it might ask your server to search for “information about AI Toolkit.”
4. The MCP server receives this request, uses the Smart Search AI vector database to find the most relevant content on your website, and then sends that information back to the AI model.
5. The AI model now has fresh, accurate content from your site. It uses this information to formulate a relevant, up-to-date answer for the user.

In short, the MCP server allows AI applications to be powered by the real-time, accurate information from your website’s semantic search and vector database, rather than the stale or scraped data that an LLM would otherwise be limited to. This turns your website into a live, dynamic knowledge base for any AI agent you connect to it.

Testing the Smart Search AI MCP

Once you have an MCP server running, the next step is to connect to it and test its capabilities. This is where a client inspector becomes useful. Tools like the MCP Inspector or a versatile API client such as Postman (using its WebSocket request feature) allow you to interact with your server just as an AI model would. This process is important for debugging and ensuring your server provides the correct data.

In this article, I am stoked about using Postman because it is a bit easier to work with, I think.

Step 1: Establishing a connection

First, you need the unique URL for your Smart Search AI MCP Server (refer to the instructions on how to obtain it here). In Postman, you would click on the “New” button at the top of your Workspaces item page.  This will show a card menu. Click on “MCP” to create the interface page to interact with your server.  It looks like this:

It will take you to the MCP interface page.  This is where you can paste your URL in the address bar, then click “Connect.”

A successful connection is indicated by a status message.  You will see the green “Connected” notification at the bottom of the Postman window. This confirms that your client is now actively listening to the MCP server.

Step 2: Discovering the available tools

This is where the navigation begins. Once connected, the MCP server immediately advertises the tools it makes available. These tools are the specific functions or actions the AI is allowed to perform. Think of them as API endpoints, but for an AI.

In the screenshot, we can see the server has presented two distinct tools:

1. fetch: The description says, “Fetch a specific post by its ID from the Elasticsearch index.” This is a highly specific tool that requires a unique identifier to retrieve a single piece of content.
2. search: The description is, “Search for information in the connected Elasticsearch index, please try to refine the search query as much as possible.” This is a more flexible tool designed for querying the data source with natural language or keywords.

This discovery phase is fundamental to MCP. The client (and by extension, the AI) doesn’t need prior knowledge of what the server can do; the server announces its own capabilities.

Step 3: Making a request (Interacting with a tool)

Now that we know what tools are available, we can send a message to use one of them. MCP messages are typically formatted in JSON, specifying the tool_name to use and the arguments it requires.

Let’s test the search tool. For this example, I will just use the filter: string input, which accepts freeform text. I typed “webinar” in the input box because my WordPress content contains a webinar post.  On the side JSON pane, it looks like this:

This JSON object explicitly tells the MCP server: “Use your search tool and give it a query with the value “webinar.“

Step 4: Understanding the response

After you send the request, the MCP server will execute the tool with the arguments you provided and send a response back. This response is the raw data that the AI would receive to formulate its answer.

This is the successful response we get back:

{

 "content": [

   {

     "type": "text",

     "text": {

       "results": [

         {

           "id": "doc-1",

           "title": "Webinar – WP Engine MCP",

           "text": "This is WP Engine's Webinar Show about nerd stuff",

           "url": "https://demo.example.com/webinar/getting-started"

         }

       ]

     }

   }

 ]

}

The shape that comes back is a stringified JSON blob with a results array. I parsed it and put it in a code block to make it more readable for this article.

The Smart Search AI MCP response is an object with a single content array, where each element represents one piece of output.

In this example, a content item has type: “text” and a text payload that is an object containing a results array. Each entry in results is a document with four core fields: id , title, text and url .

This envelope makes it easy to stream or combine multiple output parts, while the inner results objects can be extended (e.g., add score, site, or published_at) without changing the outer shape.

Connect Smart Search AI MCP directly into your AI model

You can expose Smart Search AI to any AI assistant by running it as an MCP server and plugging it in through a connector.

I will show Claude in this example. We need to register the same endpoint using their MCP client configuration. 

Once connected, the model can discover Smart Search AI’s declared tools via MCP’s tool-listing protocol and call them with structured arguments—no bespoke SDK required.

Functionally, wiring Smart Search AI through MCP upgrades your assistant from “best-effort guessing” to retrieval-augmented answers that are precise, auditable, and policy-aware.

If you use Claude, the add a custom connector page looks like this:

Once connected, your AI model will know the abilities and tooling it can call on from your site. It will be exposed in the dropdown selector.

Your site search, reimagined

The journey from a static webpage to an interactive, intelligent resource is the next great leap in digital experiences. We’ve seen how the MCP acts as a connector, bridging the gap between AI and the real-time, valuable content on your website. When this protocol is combined with the semantic power of WP Engine’s Smart Search AI, your WordPress site is no longer just a destination for users; it becomes a dynamic data source that any AI agent can consult.

By providing the tools to integrate your content with the world’s most advanced AI models, WP Engine is putting you at the forefront of this new AI age. Enable the Smart Search AI MCP server on any WordPress site and get the power of AI and WordPress!

1. WP Engine is a proud member and supporter of the community of WordPress® users. The WordPress® trademarks are the intellectual property of the WordPress Foundation, and the Woo® and WooCommerce® trademarks are the intellectual property of WooCommerce, Inc. Uses of the WordPress®, Woo®, and WooCommerce® names in this website are for identification purposes only and do not imply an endorsement by WordPress Foundation or WooCommerce, Inc. WP Engine is not endorsed or owned by, or affiliated with, the WordPress Foundation or WooCommerce, Inc. ︎

The post Understanding WP Engine’s Smart Search AI Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server appeared first on WP Engine®.

That little input field is some of the most important real estate on your entire website, because the people who use it are telling you exactly what they want. Unfortunately, most on-site search experiences are still stuck in 2010, with just 44% of desktop and mobile sites and apps providing “decent” or “good” search performance. The rest are slow, rigid, and often return a “no results found” message if the user’s keyword doesn’t exactly match your content.

Now, compound that with what we’re seeing on the agentic web. Human traffic is harder than ever to gain. Only about one-third of users who start their research on Google actually click a result to visit a website, and once they arrive, their patience for bad experiences is thin. Moving away from strict keyword-matching database lookups toward semantic, scalable search is now the prerequisite for modern user experiences.

This article will guide you through the new standards for modern site search. You’ll learn what functionality you need for site search optimization in the agentic era to serve your human visitors, delivering the results they want quickly.

Why default WordPress search fails humans

Sites that rely on native WordPress®¹ search functionality are the main reason you’ll hear complaints about WordPress search not working. It uses very basic SQL queries, which can only match exact keywords to post titles and content.

This rigid logic fails to understand a human user’s intention, let alone a typo. If a potential customer on that outdoor retailer’s site types in “warm winter coat,” but the product page is titled “Thermal Insulated Parka,” default WordPress search will miss it.

These complex database search queries can quickly drain server resources. When your search bar gets an influx of traffic, whether from a flash sale or an influx of bot traffic, it can slow down or even crash the entire site. 

Default search is also blind to the tools and strategies that modern WordPress sites use to organize and standardize content, like Advanced Custom Fields (ACF), custom tables, or third-party synced data. With WordPress’ native capabilities, all those valuable fields are entirely unsearchable.

Must-have features of modern site search

To meet human expectations and site performance standards, you need a site search tool that goes beyond the basics. 

The following paragraphs spell out the new baseline requirements for site search solutions on the modern web. The right tool will include all these capabilities, allowing both humans to access information quickly while maintaining your site speed and reliability.

Performance & privacy offloading

Native WordPress search uses database lookups to scan every single line of text on your website. When traffic is heavy or agents attempt to comb through your digital archives, these lookups strain your servers, causing slow response times and page delays. Even a few seconds of wait time can result in a bounce. If the issue escalates to a full site crash, your business might go offline during critical conversion moments, like a huge sale or news announcement.

Decoupling your search from your primary website hosting server offloads the strain of heavy searches. When a user queries your site, the request bypasses your standard WordPress database and gets routed to a dedicated external search index that’s designed to process complex data matching and return the results in milliseconds.

This infrastructure also acts as an extra privacy wall for your data. A dedicated search server isolates important data like product details, custom fields, and user search patterns, so it’s protected within your own digital ecosystem rather than feeding every search and interaction to public training models.

Related & recommended posts

When your site can provide intentional recommendations, it creates a secondary engine for discovery and continued engagement. While the search bar is perfect for users who know exactly what they want, recommendations lean on historical data and real-time session activity to predict additional content that might interest a user before they even ask for it.

Based on the path a visitor takes or the pages they look at, recommended or related posts can dynamically serve up sections like “You may also like” for trending content or “frequently bought together” to upsell additional products. 

This extra content visibility can naturally boost average cart sizes for eCommerce brands and dramatically increase time-on-site and ad impressions for publishers. In just one survey, Salesforce Commerce Cloud customers reported 17% of sales were influenced by its AI recommendations feature when enabled.

Your site will still work without providing personalized content and product recommendations, but once a user finishes reading that single article or buying that one product, they have no reason to keep browsing.

Semantic search

Connecting the dots between what a visitor actually types and what they truly mean is the key to preventing poor search results. Semantic search provides context-aware results that go beyond term matching to interpret the underlying intent or concept a person is actually trying to find.

Think about how people naturally look for information. If someone searches “how to fix a flat tire” in a basic keyword search, it will only return pages that explicitly contain the phrase “flat tire.” A semantic search tool understands the actual goal of the search, so it may return results about “portable air compressors,” “tire patch kits,” or “best car jacks,” even if the specific words “flat tire” never appear on those pages.

This matters because humans don’t type like databases. We often ask conversational questions, use synonyms, and describe the problems we’re encountering rather than the solution that can fix them. 

Where a static search bar forces users to guess your exact internal terminology, a semantic search experience takes the guesswork out of the experience.

Fuzzy search 

Humans make mistakes all the time, and a single misspelled word can ruin a search if you’re using the wrong tool. Enabling typo tolerance through fuzzy search is one of the easiest ways to eliminate friction and keep shoppers on your website. It translates messy typing so your visitor gets the results they’re after.

With fuzzy search, the system catches small typos and mistakes behind the scenes. So, if a user searches for “winter caot” instead of “winter coat,” your site is smart enough to serve up the correct pages.

This is especially important for mobile users, who make up more than half of all web traffic. Using thumbs on tiny screens often leads to messy typing, and if your search requires absolute perfection to return results, you may accidentally drive your users away. The built-in error forgiveness of fuzzy search helps connect users to relevant pages faster and more reliably.

Stemmed search 

Aligning your search bar with the natural way humans communicate is the key theme for many of the features we’re covering, and stemmed search is no different. It automatically strips prefixes and suffixes from words to match results to the most relevant root word.

A static system will treat similar words as completely unrelated, but searchers will often choose different variations of the same word. When search tools fail to account for term variations, relevant results can slip through the cracks. 

Stemmed search recognizes all the different terms that stem from a single root word. Let’s look at that user who was conducting searches about a flat tire. If they search “fixing a flat tire,” a stemmed search will look for all the linguistic variations of the word “fixing,” and would quickly return a result for an article called “How to Fix a Flat Tire.”

Faceted search 

If you have tons of content, you will want the ability to curate that massive, overwhelming list of search results into a highly personalized catalog, so your users can find what they need. Faceted search lets visitors narrow down their options through dynamic, clickable filters, like sizes, price points, dates, or other custom categories, right from the search results page.

This feature is especially important for eCommerce stores that need product filtering or websites with a high volume of content. Instead of forcing someone to sift through thousands of items or articles, this dynamic filtering lets them slice and dice the data in real time. For instance, a user can type in a broad term like “winter coat,” then immediately check a few boxes to narrow the view down to Size: L, Color: Black, and Price: Under $150.

When you have a lot of content, visitors can quickly get buried under pages of disorganized results, forcing them to guess more relevant search terms or click through multiple results pages to find what they need. Faceted search changes the user experience from a scavenger hunt into a leisurely browsing session. 

Results weighting

When you have dozens or potentially hundreds of results that are partially relevant to a user’s search, how do you ensure the most relevant pages rise to the top? The answer: results weighting. Also called relevance scoring, this feature allows you to tune the search engine by increasing the importance, or “weight,” of specific pages, so you can intentionally steer visitors toward specific pages. 

For example, you might increase the weight of a keyword match for “winter coat” on your product pages so they rank higher than an article on your website that compares multiple products titled “Top 10 Winter Coats.”

If you don’t weight your results, they often default to sorting content by the oldest relevant result. Users are then forced to scroll through outdated, irrelevant content instead of going straight to the more recent, relevant pages you’ve published.

Tool compatibility

Unlocking the full value of your content requires a search tool that automatically reads every piece of custom data you build into your site. Because modern WordPress development relies heavily on custom data structures, your search solution needs native, deep integration with tools like Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) and WPGraphQL straight out of the box.

Instead of limiting results to basic page titles and paragraph text, deeply integrated site search solutions instantly index every custom detail, including specialized product specs, reviewer ratings, custom page layouts, and more. For headless WordPress architectures, the search tool you choose should seamlessly expose search endpoints without tedious, manual setup.

True compatibility between your developer tools and your site search tool eliminates invisible content across your site. For example, if your search tool can’t parse ACF fields, large swaths of your most valuable metadata may not appear in search results for your users. In the same vein, built-in WPGraphQL support ensures headless sites aren’t forced to rely on expensive, custom-coded workarounds that can bog down performance.

Advanced Boolean commands

Giving high-intent searchers the tools they need to pinpoint exact datasets with simple commands lets them use your search bar as a more precise navigation tool. Built-in Boolean logic commands like AND, OR, NOT, and comparison symbols like > and < let users refine their searches right inside the search bar.

For example, commands like “Smartphones” NOT “Refurbished” or Price < $50 instantly filter out items that don’t match their exact criteria. 

While everyday browsers might not use these modifiers, power users like B2B buyers and researchers used to navigating massive, complex catalogs will appreciate the added capability. 

Exclusions

Keeping clutter out of your results page protects your users’ experience and their perception of your brand. Exclusions, or content filtering, is a way to set clear rules that block specific post types, URLs, or even entire categories from ever appearing in search results.

Instead of exposing every single page on your site, this capability lets you filter out unnecessary results like post-purchase “thank you” pages, staging URLs, or out-of-stock items.

This filtering both safeguards the privacy of certain pages and prevents users from interacting with irrelevant content. Internal site search solutions shouldn’t operate like a raw web crawler that surfaces every single page, and content filtering is the best way to weed out unsuitable results.

Multi-field searches

Content creators and publishers naturally scatter important context across different parts of a page, but visitors have no idea how your backend is organized. They just know what they’re trying to find. Scanning every corner of your site is the only way to ensure valuable content isn’t hidden just because of how or where it’s stored. 

Multi-field searching ensures no stone is left unturned, allowing your site search tool to query across multiple database rows, tags, and custom metadata fields simultaneously in a single pass.

Instead of a search bar checking only one surface-level location at a time (like page titles), multi-field searches scan titles, tags, categories, excerpts, and custom fields all at once. Without it, important products, specifications, and valuable context may get left out of the results.

Composable indexing

Your main website probably doesn’t represent your entire digital ecosystem. Unifying all your content under a single search bar gives visitors a way to find answers across your entire brand, not just a single site. 

Composable indexing breaks down system silos to extend your search index, allowing it to crawl and surface data from external documentation platforms, help desks, separate subdomains, and third-party SaaS applications right alongside your on-site content.

This approach fixes the disjointed experience that happens as modern brands grow and adopt different tools. Your visitors shouldn’t have to hunt down three separate search bars on your blog, online store, and support portal just to answer one question. Bringing together content that would be otherwise fragmented across platforms creates a seamless, professional search experience.

Stay searchable with the Smart Search AI plugin

Whether you want to increase eCommerce conversions with faceted filtering, improve engagement rates through semantic understanding, you’ll need the right tool.

Fortunately, modernizing your site is simpler than you think. We released Smart Search AI as a standalone plugin to make enterprise-grade AI architecture available for every single WordPress site. 

Is your site’s current search experience up to snuff? Audit it yourself. Try entering a common search term with a simple typo into your own site’s search bar. If you aren’t satisfied with the results—or if you simply get “no results”—it is time for an upgrade.

Download the Smart Search AI plugin today to modernize your site’s search in minutes.

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