Stack playbook · Snapshot 23 October 2026
WordPress: readiness playbook
What 4,581 measured sites on this platform or framework get right, where they fall short, and the WordPress-specific steps that close each gap.
- Sites measured
- 4,581
- Median readiness index
- 66/100
- Profiles on this stack
- 1,959
detected from homepage HTML and headers
all sites: 64
top-50K sites
Readiness by lane
Enable
89/100
All sites 77
Harden
53/100
All sites 56
Accelerate
66/100
All sites 64
Recover
7/100
All sites 10
The WordPress playbook
Gaps ordered by impact, with the platform-specific step where one exists.
HSTS kept for at least a year
26% observed · all sites 34%
Send Strict-Transport-Security on HTTPS responses. Start with a short max-age (for example 300 seconds), confirm every subdomain works over HTTPS, then raise it in steps to 31536000. Add includeSubDomains only when all subdomains are HTTPS. HSTS preload is optional and hard to undo; hstspreload.org itself does not recommend it by default.
DMARC policy enforces quarantine or reject
27% observed · all sites 39%
Publish DMARC with p=none and a reporting address first, fix any legitimate senders that fail SPF or DKIM alignment, then move to quarantine and finally reject.
security.txt published
2.9% observed · all sites 7.1%
Publish /.well-known/security.txt with at least Contact and Expires fields, as RFC 9116 requires, and review it before it expires.
CAA records limit who can issue certificates
11% observed · all sites 13%
Publish CAA records naming every CA you actually use, including the CAs your CDN uses for managed certificates. Add an iodef contact if you want reports.
No render-blocking scripts in <head>
30% observed · all sites 48%
Add defer to scripts that need the DOM, async to independent ones such as analytics, or move them to the end of the body.
On WordPress: Since WordPress 6.3, scripts can be registered with a defer or async loading strategy.
Guide: Control Third-Party Scripts Before They Control Your Page
Modern image formats in use
45% observed · all sites 40%
Serve WebP or AVIF with a JPEG or PNG fallback, either through an image CDN or by generating both formats at build time.
On WordPress: WordPress has supported WebP uploads since 5.8 and AVIF since 6.5; image plugins or the host can convert existing images.
Guide: AVIF, WebP, JPEG, and PNG: Choose the Right Image Format
Content Security Policy present
23% observed · all sites 32%
Start with Content-Security-Policy-Report-Only to see what would break, tighten the policy over a few weeks, then enforce it.
Guide: Payment Security and PCI DSS: What Website Owners Need to Know
DNSSEC signed
6.1% observed · all sites 8%
Enable DNSSEC at your DNS provider, then add the DS record at your registrar. Plan provider moves carefully: a stale DS record can make the domain fail to resolve.
Guide: Website Uptime Readiness: Prepare Before Traffic Arrives
Where WordPress sites lead
- Structured data present81% observedall sites 51%
- Canonical URL declared93% observedall sites 68%
- XML sitemap discoverable93% observedall sites 70%
- robots.txt published96% observedall sites 76%