WordPress Glossary

The private company behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Jetpack, Tumblr, and the largest commercial investment in the WordPress ecosystem. Not the same as WordPress itself, but impossible to separate from it.

Three specific metrics Google uses to measure how fast and stable your page feels to a real visitor. They are a ranking signal, and they are measurable.

The block-based editor introduced in WordPress 5.0 that replaced the Classic Editor. Each element on the page — paragraph, image, button, embed — is a discrete block you can move, style, and reuse independently.

Co-creator of WordPress, CEO of Automattic, and de facto leader of the WordPress open-source project — the most consequential single person in the WordPress ecosystem.

Running WordPress on a server you choose and control, using software downloaded from WordPress.org. You own the stack, the data, and every decision about how it operates.

The open-source content management system that powers over 40% of the web. Free to use, free to modify, and not owned by any single company. The software itself, not any particular hosting platform.

The non-profit that owns the WordPress trademark and protects the open-source project from commercial capture — not to be confused with Automattic.

A for-profit hosting platform operated by Automattic that runs WordPress software for you. Convenient, but you trade control and flexibility for that convenience.

The official home of the open-source WordPress software: where you download WordPress, find plugins and themes, and access documentation. It is not a hosting service.

The most widely installed WordPress SEO plugin, now owned by Newfold Digital. Handles meta tags, sitemaps, schema markup, and on-page analysis. A solid default for most sites, though not the only credible option.