Advernation is a WordPress developer in New York City. We build new WordPress websites, rebuild slow ones that were assembled with a page builder, move sites to WordPress from other website builders, and replace WordPress sites that have been hacked. Every job is done the same way: a light theme made for the site, a short list of plugins, and every old address kept working.
If you searched for a WordPress developer because you were thinking of hiring one, consider what you need the person for. A business with one website rarely has full-time work for a developer. It has a project, and afterward a few hours a month. That is the work we take on, from our office at 1115 Broadway in Manhattan.
Have a WordPress site that is slow, broken or hacked? Call us, or send its address through the contact page.
Why we build on WordPress
We build on WordPress because the site stays yours. WordPress is open source software, licensed under the General Public License. The license gives you the freedom to run the program for any purpose and to study and change it. In practice that means three things for a business owner:
- You are not tied to us. Any competent developer can open a WordPress site and work on it.
- You are not tied to a host. The site can be moved to another hosting company without being rebuilt.
- You can change your own text and pictures in the editor without calling anyone.
A site on a closed website builder is rented. When the builder raises its price, drops a feature or will not let you fix a title, the choice is to accept it or to start again somewhere else.
Where WordPress sites go wrong
WordPress itself is rarely the problem. What gets piled on top of it is. We see the same three faults again and again.
Page builders and bought themes
A bought theme is written to sell to thousands of businesses, so it ships the code for every layout any of them might want, and a page builder adds its own layer on top. Every visitor downloads all of it. Our own site is the nearest example. Until this version it ran on a bought page-builder theme with a slider: the theme’s stylesheet alone weighed 1.3 megabytes, and the homepage called 75 script files. We rebuilt it the way this page describes.
Plugins nobody is looking after
Every plugin is somebody else’s code running on your site. WordPress’s own hardening guide names old and outdated plugins and software among the usual ways in, and its advice is blunt: keep WordPress and your plugins up to date, do not get plugins or themes from untrusted sources, and if you are not using a plugin, delete it from the system. A site with forty plugins, half of them switched off and forgotten, is forty things that have to be watched.
Old PHP and old hosting
WordPress runs on PHP, the language on the server. WordPress.org publishes the versions it recommends: a current PHP, a current MariaDB or MySQL database and HTTPS. It warns that older versions have reached their official end of life and may expose a site to security vulnerabilities. A site that nobody maintains stays on the PHP version it was launched with. Checking it is the first thing we do.
How we build on WordPress
- One block theme, written for the site. No page builder and no bought theme, so a page carries only the code it uses.
- A short plugin list. Each plugin has to earn its place, and nothing sits on the server switched off.
- No slider library and no script the page needs before it can draw itself.
- Pictures converted to modern formats and cut to the size they are shown at.
- Pages served from a cache, so the server is not rebuilding the same page for every visitor.
- Editing of theme and plugin files from the dashboard switched off, the old XML-RPC entrance refused, and no script allowed to run from the uploads folder.
- Titles, descriptions, canonical tags, a sitemap and structured data on every page, set from one record of the business.
The result is measured, not asserted. We do not launch a site whose performance scores under 95 on a phone in Google’s Lighthouse test. How that connects to ranking, and Google’s own marks for a fast page, are on our web design page.
Rebuilding a page-builder site
A rebuild keeps what the old site earned and throws away what slowed it down. The order of the work matters more than the tools:
- Record everything first: every address the old site answers on, every title and description, the menu, the forms and where they send their entries, the tracking codes, the redirects already in place.
- Sort the content. What is true and useful is carried over and rewritten. Sample text left by the theme, duplicate pages and empty shells are not.
- Build the new theme and pages on a private preview address, so the live site is untouched until the new one is finished.
- Keep every address. A page either stays at its old address or is redirected permanently to its replacement. Google’s guidance on site moves asks for exactly this, with the redirects kept for at least a year.
- Compare before and after: speed on a phone, every old address answering, forms delivering, tracking counting.
- Switch over, and keep the old site out of reach of the web until you are sure nothing was missed.
Rebuild or repair: which one a site needs
| Repair the site you have | Rebuild it | |
|---|---|---|
| When it fits | The theme is sound and the trouble is specific: a slow page, a broken form, an old PHP version | The theme or page builder is the trouble, or the site has been hacked |
| What changes | The faulty parts only | The theme, the plugins and usually the text. The addresses stay |
| What it costs | Hours | A project |
| The risk | Paying for repairs again when the next plugin breaks | Rankings can fluctuate for a while after any move, which is why the addresses are kept |
We will tell you which one we think your site needs, and when repairs would cost more than a rebuild.
Replacing a hacked WordPress site
A hacked site should be replaced, not patched, because once an intruder has written files to a server you cannot be sure which files to trust. In October 2026 we did this for Golden I Construction, a renovation contractor in New York City. The hacked site was replaced by a clean one, all 29 pages and 70 articles were rewritten, every old address was kept, and on a phone Lighthouse scores the new site 98 to 100.
A clean site is not a promise that nothing can ever happen. The WordPress hardening guide puts it honestly: security is risk reduction, not risk elimination. What a rebuild does is remove the usual ways in. There are fewer plugins to go out of date, no forgotten code on the server, current software underneath and less that an intruder can write to.
Moving to WordPress from another builder
A site built on a hosted website builder can be moved to WordPress without losing its place in Google, provided the addresses come with it. We record every address, picture, form and tracking code on the old site, rebuild the pages in WordPress, and redirect any address that has to change. Your domain stays where it is registered, in your name.
WordPress SEO
WordPress does not rank a site by itself, and no plugin does it either. What the platform gives you is control over everything Google reads: the address, the title, the description, the headings, the markup and the speed. We set those up for each page when we build, one search to a page. The work that follows, content, links and reviews, is on our New York SEO page, and a first check of your present site is free with the website audit.
What WordPress work costs
A repair is priced by the hour and a build or a rebuild by the project, and you get the price before the work starts. The size of a project follows the number of pages, how much text has to be written again and how many old addresses have to be carried across.
We quote WordPress hourly rate and project prices after the free audit, with no contract. Get a quote.
What we need, and what you keep
- An administrator login to the site, or access to the hosting account. For a hacked site, the hosting access is the one that matters.
- Access to the domain’s settings, or the name of whoever has it.
- A list of what must not change: addresses printed on your trucks and cards, forms that feed other systems, tracking that reports to someone.
- You keep the domain, the hosting account, the site and its content. We work in them.
A WordPress developer in New York
Advernation was started on New Year’s Eve 2007 in Flushing, Queens, by Christopher Maddaloni, a former electrician, and has been in Manhattan since 2016. We work with businesses in New York and across the country, and none of this work needs us in your office. What being here adds is that you can ask who built your site and get a name and a New York address.
Send us the address of your site and tell us what is wrong with it. Call us, or use the contact page.
Questions people ask
Do you work on existing WordPress sites, or only build new ones?
Both. We repair and speed up existing sites, rebuild sites whose theme or page builder is the problem, and build new ones. We tell you which we think yours needs, and when repairs would cost more than a rebuild.
Do you build with Elementor, Divi or other page builders?
No. Each site we build gets one block theme written for it, with no page builder, so a page carries only the code it uses. We can work on a site that was built with one, and often the honest advice is to rebuild it.
Can you make my WordPress site faster?
Usually, and how depends on the cause. Oversized pictures, an old PHP version and missing caching can be repaired. A heavy theme or page builder cannot be tuned away, and that calls for a rebuild. Sites we build do not launch under 95 for performance on a phone.
Will my site lose its rankings in a rebuild?
The risk is managed by keeping the addresses. Each old address stays or is redirected permanently to its replacement, and the redirects are kept. Google says to expect temporary fluctuation in ranking during a move.
My WordPress site was hacked. Can you clean it?
We replace it with a clean site, because files an intruder may have touched cannot be trusted. For Golden I Construction in October 2026 that meant a new site in place of the hacked one, with all 29 pages and 70 articles rewritten and every old address kept.
Is WordPress secure?
It is as secure as it is kept. WordPress’s own guide calls security risk reduction, not risk elimination, and names outdated plugins and software among the usual ways in. Current software, few plugins and nothing unused left on the server remove most of the risk.
Can you move my site from another website builder to WordPress?
Yes. We record every address, picture, form and tracking code on the old site, rebuild the pages in WordPress and redirect any address that has to change, so links and rankings come with you.