How many pages can WordPress handle? Know your limits

WordPress accounts for an incredible 37% of all sites online. The platform is enormous, but are there some restrictions to the number of pages you can have?

There is no hard limit on the number of pages a WordPress site can handle. WordPress’ code does not set a limit on the page count and sites like BBC America have more than 45,000 pages. So, you can have as many as you want. However, if you are going to create a large website, it's worth understanding the implications of having large numbers of WordPress pages.

We’ve taken a look at what you need to do to prevent your site from faltering as your page count grows.

Wordpress branding logo

What is the WordPress page limit?

There is no hard limit to how many pages WordPress can handle. The world’s most popular content management system has not restricted the number of pages you are allowed. You can even create a site with just pages and not use any posts.

More pages will increase the traffic to your website so restricting this would be counterproductive. Most people build a site to drive traffic to their product or service. Adding arbitrary limits would make people avoid WordPress altogether.

One of the reasons people ask how many pages can WordPress handle it because they are worried about performance. Performance has become incredibly important since April with the page experience update.

But the speed that a page loads depends on several things. Large images, sloppy JavaScript, and poorly loaded CSS all impact a WordPress site more than the number of pages. Also, the increased traffic from more pages can place extra strain on your server.

Let’s take a look at how to avoid issues with sites with a significant number of pages.

Stack of books on a desk

Avoiding issues with large numbers of WordPress pages

Don’t let a site with a lot of pages cause you issues. There is a trick to scaling a WordPress site and, doing it wrong can cause major issues down the line.

Permalink Structure

The permalink structure, or permanent link structure, is one of the most important things to consider when creating a site. A permalink is the URL used to direct people to your site. It is incredibly important to keep these simple.

Most people recommend using something like:

https://www.sitename.com/pagename

Changing a complicated permalink structure like the following example can be very difficult to do down the road.

https://www.sitename.com/parentpage1/subparentpage1/pagename

A large number of WordPress pages means you will have to individually redirect each page if you change a category or sub-category. Get an idea of the site structure before you begin and opt for something simple. It means you can have as many WordPress pages as you want without worrying about the headache of reorganizing everything later on.

Caching

Caching stores copies of your site's files that haven’t changed so they can be accessed more quickly. It makes an incredible difference in the speed of your site and is a crucial part of serving a webpage quickly.

The number of WordPress pages you have won’t affect caching. But you should aim to use a plugin that caches your entire site. I’ve included a list of the best caching plugins below:

  1. WP Rocket - Premium plugin but by far the best on the market. Makes an incredible difference.
  2. WP Fastest Cache - Has a free tier which is good but the additional extras such as mobile caching make the premium well worth it.
  3. WP Super Cache- A free plugin that does the basics well and is perfect for those on a budget.
  4. W3 Total Cache - Another freemium plugin that does the basics well but options like fragment caching make the pro version my go-to.

A good cache plugin is essential. Whether you use one of the above or not make sure you having something to help speed up your loading times.

Servers in cabinets in a data center

Hosting

The better your hosting the more capable your server will be able to quickly deliver numerous WordPress pages as your site grows. With page speed now being a key metric, making sure you serve up pages quickly is vital.

Often people worry about how many pages their WordPress site can handle because things start to slow down due to poor hosting. Take a look at the hosting options below to scale your site worry-free.


Cheapest Option

Bluehost - Perfect for those who are starting out and are on a budget.

Best All-rounder

Siteground - Fantastic speed and support. Great for those willing to spend a bit more to get results.

Best for the tech-savvy

Cloudways - Perfect option for the developer turned blogger who wants a bit more control over the setup.

Best for managed hosting

WP Engine - If you need a hand with hosting multiple WordPress sites and want the hassle stripped away, WP Engine is for you.


As you grow you are going to want to move onto a dedicated server so that you aren’t sharing the server with other sites. Companies like FlyWheel make the setup and deployment of stuff like this simple!

Theme & Plugins

Your theme and plugin selection can have a massive impact on how WordPress handles your pages. Poor theme selection can grind pages to a halt. The same is true for plugins. Too many plugins cause your site to become sluggish and affect page load speeds.

Opt for a good parent theme that can be easily customized and only opt to use a plugin if it is absolutely necessary.

Planning ahead

Generally speaking, most create posts when scaling their site. There is nothing wrong with creating a lot of pages. However, they don’t appear in your RSS feed and can’t be categorized or tagged, the long term this makes organizing your site a nightmare.

If you silo your content correctly, use posts, and put it all under the correct category, you won't even have to worry about how many pages WordPress can handle. Plan how you want your site to look a couple of years down the line. Think of how you’d like things organized because you don’t want to change them in six months.

What is a page in WordPress?

WordPress pages tend to be static. Typical pages include the about, contact, and privacy pages. We tend to think of WordPress pages as evergreen. They have content that is timeless and usually doesn’t expire. Although, all information on a page can still be changed.

Pages do have a creation date in the database but don’t have a published date so are not included in your RSS feed.

You can have as many pages as you like but most people opt to grow their site using posts as they are easier to share. The cool thing about pages is that they can be customized, even by people trying tolearn JavaScript in a week or two!

How is a post different?

Posts are usually bloggable content and will always appear in chronological order on your site with the newest posts coming first.

Posts come with a published date, appear in your RSS feed, and are fantastic for SEO. If you are wondering how many posts can WordPress handle we’ve covered that extensively.

Photo of a tortoise

Can WordPress handle large sites?

WordPress can handle incredibly large websites. The CMS is a heavyweight of the industry and is now incredibly robust. Microsoft, Facebook, and Disney all have high-traffic sites built on WordPress.

The great thing about WordPress is the ability to create templates for posts and pages. You can customize the look of pages in general, or opt for a completely customized page using the template hierarchy.

Your question shouldn’t be about whether WordPress can handle 500 pages or even 10,00 pages. Instead, think about what you are using a site that large for. Is the content up to scratch with 1000 pages? If you have an e-commerce site that size, are you properly optimizing categories?

WordPress works well with any number of pages but just look to optimize your approach before creating hundreds of pages.

Can WordPress handle heavy traffic?

WordPress does not have any limits in terms of the amount of traffic it can handle. Many bloggers and affiliate marketers make their full-time income from launching and promoting their WordPress sites. They choose WordPress as a platform because it is easy to use and can handle large amounts of traffic.

Run-of-the-mill bloggers can see more than 200,000+ page views a month in traffic with no dip in performance. WordPress is just the platform the site is built on but it's done so well that some people worry software engineers will be outsourced. However, the real bottleneck to speed will be your hosting.

Get a good package that allows you to scale as your website grows, and you will be fine.

Resources