A Complete Guide for Professional Site Management
Analogy: “House Blueprints” vs. “Furniture & Belongings”
A WordPress site consists of two completely different elements: “Files” and a “Database.” Understanding the difference is the first step to professional site management. It’s easiest to understand this by comparing it to building a house.
Files = House Blueprints
The unchanging “skeleton” that determines the house’s structure, room layout, wall colors, and window shapes.
Database = Furniture & Belongings
The “living data” that changes daily inside the house, like the sofa, the books on the shelf, and the contents of the fridge.
You can’t build a house without blueprints, and you can’t live in it without furniture. Similarly, WordPress needs both to function as a complete website.
1. Files (The Blueprints) – The Site’s Skeleton
These are the physical files that determine your site’s appearance and functionality. They exist as actual files in folders on your PC or server.
Tools Used:
Cursor/Terminal (Git/GitHub)
Role:
Defines the site’s structure. This includes themes (appearance), plugins (added features), and the WordPress core programs.
Why Git/GitHub?:
Git/GitHub excels at perfectly recording every single line of change history to the blueprints, like “changed wall color from blue to white” or “added one window.” This allows you to revert to a previous state at any time or see exactly what was changed.
What specific files are included?
All of these files inside your directors-console folder are “Files.”
| Folder/File Name | Role |
|---|---|
/wp-admin/ |
The set of files that run the WordPress admin dashboard. |
/wp-includes/ |
The set of files for WordPress’s core functionality. |
/wp-content/ |
The most important folder, containing all your customizations. |
↳ /themes/ |
Contains the theme files that determine the site’s appearance. |
↳ style.css |
The CSS file that defines the site’s design. |
↳ functions.php |
A PHP file for adding custom functions to your theme. |
↳ index.php |
A template file for displaying the homepage and other pages. |
↳ /plugins/ |
The set of files for plugins that add features to the site. |
↳ /uploads/ |
Image and video files that you have uploaded. |
wp-config.php |
A critical configuration file containing database connection info. |
.htaccess |
A configuration file that controls server behavior. |
2. Database (The Furniture) – The Site’s Content
A collection of data that changes daily, such as posts, pages, and site settings. This data doesn’t exist as a single file but is stored in organized tables within a MySQL database management system.
Tools Used:
Local App (Export/Import) / All-in-One WP Migration
Role:
Stores the site’s content. This includes the text you write and your configuration values.
Why Export/Import?:
When you move houses, you don’t write down the position of every piece of furniture on the blueprints. It’s more efficient to pack all the furniture into moving boxes (.zip or .wpress files) and transport them all at once. Export/Import is the safest and most reliable way to do this “complete move.”
What specific data is included?
This data is described in the SQL language and backed up inside a file like local.sql.
| Database Location (Table Name) | Role |
|---|---|
wp_posts |
All the text and titles of your posts and pages are stored here. |
wp_users |
The site’s user information (username, password, email address, etc.). |
wp_options |
The basic site settings. “Site Title” and “Permalink Settings” are stored here. |
wp_comments |
Comments posted on the site. |
wp_postmeta |
Additional information linked to posts and pages (e.g., custom fields). |
wp_termmeta |
Additional information linked to categories and tags. |
3. What’s the Data Ratio? Files vs. Database
So, what is the ratio of data size (weight) between “Files” (the blueprints) and the “Database” (the furniture) on a typical site? It’s interesting how this balance changes completely depending on the type of site.
Scenario 1: Simple Blog or Company Website
A site mainly composed of text-based posts and pages, with a modest number of images.
Explanation: While there are many “files” like themes and plugins, the “database” that holds the post text data is very small in terms of file size.
Scenario 2: Image-Heavy Photo Gallery Site
A site with many high-resolution photos uploaded.
Explanation: In this case, the /uploads/ folder (where photos are stored) within the “files” becomes overwhelmingly large. The database only contains text information like photo titles, so its weight is negligible.
Scenario 3: Large-Scale E-commerce Site
A site where thousands of products, tens of thousands of customer details, and past order histories are all stored in the database.
Explanation: In this scenario, the weight of the “database” increases dramatically. Lifeline business data like product, customer, and order information accumulates continuously. Still, product images and other files are also numerous, so the files often remain heavier overall.
Conclusion
In most cases, especially for sites that handle images and videos, the files (the blueprints) are overwhelmingly larger in terms of data volume. However, in terms of importance, both are 100% critical. The site won’t display without the blueprints, and it will be empty without the database.
Managing these two completely different types of things with their respective optimal methods (Git and Export/Import) is the core of the professional development workflow we’ve established.
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