A Guide to the MySQL Database Management for WordPress Websites

Posted by andrewthompson on April 20th, 2019

The database has been defined as the organized as well as structure set of data stored in a storage device or computing device. Sometimes, the database has been referred to as the software which is responsible for managing, storing and organizing the data. The concept of a database can be compared with traditional files and cabinets. In various offices, you shall find that files are stored inside cabinets. For finding files easily, they are stored inside the cabinets in an organized way. For example, they may be stored as per the year of creation. They could also be stored in a way they have been named. For example, files having names with initial letter "A" are stored in one place. Similarly, files starting with other initials are stored in one place.

This traditional concept of database management is applied in the process of virtual database management as well. Data is important for every organization as well as the website. So, it has to be stored with precision. Making mistakes in the database store can lead to heavy expenses for a business. Nevertheless, it is important to find data when they are required. If finding data is messy as well as time wasting job, it could easily lead to many problems.

Database Management for WordPress Website

WordPress is a commonly known content management system which is highly appreciated for its user-friendliness. Creating a website with this CMS platform is a simple thing which does not lead to any complications at all even for the layman. Creating a WordPress based website is easy, but managing the database for the website or blog is not the simplest thing to do. If you are not a database management professional, you need to learn some key things for better database management. For managing the database for WordPress based websites, you need to follow a few simple techniques. Those techniques are discussed in the following section.

At this point, WordPress users should know that their website can be managed with Mysql database management platform. Basically, WordPress uses MySQL as the database management platform. So, basic knowledge of MySQL is essential for better management of the database of the WordPress based website. Now, to begin with, many people would like to know about the definition of MySQL. It can be stated as the software which is used for creating as well as storing data of the website in a systematic way. Just like WordPress, MySQL is an open source platform. Thus, it is free to be used by everyone. It can be used as the database of any website. It is regarded as compatible with open source software like Apache, LINUX operating system and PHP.

Installation of MySQL for WordPress Website

Since MySQL is compatible with WordPress, there is no big hassle for WordPress users to install MySQL for database management. If you choose WordPress hosting packages, you shall get the MySQL for free with the package. For the installation of MySQL, a few simple steps are needed to be followed. During the installation process, you need to provide your WordPress database information to WordPress. Remaining things will happen automatically as WordPress will conduct the remaining steps of installation on your behalf, as per the inputs that you provide to the WordPress server. For more knowledge or information in this regard, you can check RemoteDBA.com.

Guide to WordPress Database Architecture

In order to understand the way WordPress communicates and works with the MySQL database software, you need to learn about the tables that are used by WordPress. For beginners, it would not be a difficult thing to understand as WordPress has a simple database schema. There are a total of 11 tables that you would find with the WordPress database. In the following section, we shall briefly know about those tables first. Knowing these tables is important as that would help in the database management process with more precision.

• wp_commentmeta: On your WordPress website pages, you shall find that the comment section is present. People can leave comments on this section. If you kept this comment section active, this table would store all the metadata of the comments that have been left on your WP website.

• wp_comments: This is quite similar to the previous table that we have discussed. However, in this case, the comment has been stored instead of the metadata of the comments.

• wp_links: In this table, all the information that is entered into the link manager feature of WordPress has been stored. This could be the lesser used table of WordPress.

• wp_options: In this table, you shall find that all the WordPress options have been stored. The plugins, which you use, generally use this table to store preferences of the WordPress users.

• wp_postsmeta: As the name suggests, metadata of the WordPress posts have been stored in this table. Every page that you create contains metadata. This metadata is important for the Google listing of the website. So, the data is stored in a table format for easy sorting as well as editing.

• wp_posts: With this table, all your posts or WP pages are saved. This is a crucial table, as it contains a large portion of the information on your website.

• wp_terms: Categories for the links, posts, and tags are stored in this database table.

• wp_term_relationships: Here, the posts that have been associated with the “WP-Terms” table are stored.

• wp_term_taxonomy: In this table, terms and taxonomy of the WP website have been stored.

• wp_usermeta: Metadata from the "wp_userstable” has been stored at this place.

• wp_users: All the users and related information to those users are stored at this table.

Conclusion

Overall, WordPress database management is not a difficult thing until you have basic knowledge of MySQL. If you do not have knowledge of this software or open source database framework, you could possibly come across some problems. Creating a WordPress based website is easy, but database management is not as simple as the creation of a website. So, you need to work on your basic knowledge for database management for fetching better results.