Did you know that in the early 1990’s, running a large scale website using a content management system could cost the website owner somewhere around a million dollars every month? Indeed, if you have only seen latest CMS-s like Drupal and Magento, then you may not have any idea about how complex those early CMS-s could be. The entire CMS would be coded in C++ or a similar programming language and the back-end would be controlled by a database management system like Oracle. Do you know what is even worse? It is the way in which each post would have to be hand-coded by programmers. Even an update as simple as changing a few numbers on a page could take a programmer as long as one hour! Small wonder there were so few websites around back then, eh?

CMS-s like Drupal have completely changed the ballgame

The picture has changed completely in the last decade, with a host of state-of-the-art content management systems emerging into the scene. What is even better is that a lot of these are available free of cost. Take Drupal, for instance. Released way back in January 2001, this free-of-cost CMS has changed the way people approach the task of developing and maintaining websites, to a great extent. Does that mean Drupal is built for laymen? Well, it might as well be, since you do not need anything about software development or coding, in order to install Drupal on a server, launch your website with it and start adding text and multimedia to your website. You only need to know how to code if you wish to customise advanced features, and then again you can hire a developer for quite affordable service rates to get that done.

Why Drupal is special

Do the above features sound good? Well, they are not even the tip of the iceberg named Drupal! Ponder on this – why do multinational conglomerates like MTV, Yahoo!, CNN, and Symbian use Drupal to run their websites? Surely they can afford paid content management systems! The reasons are simple:

1. Security: Drupal content management system is coded from scratch in PHP, which is one of the most secure programming languages around. The details are beyond the scope of this article, but suffice to say that the sources of text and multimedia elements of your website, as well as the back-end database, would remain completely shielded from visitors of both welcome and unwelcome types. And unless they know the exact locations of your databases and files, it would be near-impossible for hackers to extract information from your website, leave alone manipulate the same.

2. Auto-generated mobile version: These days, more people browse websites on their smartphones, rather than PCs. As a result, most website owners ensure that mobile versions of their websites are always available for visitors. Drupal makes this process completely seamless, by offering an add-on that allows you to generate a mobile version of your website with just a few clicks.

3. Complete social integration: Need updates done to your website automatically promoted on social media networks like Facebook and Twitter? This can be done by a developer after writing a few hundred lines of code, or without writing a single one by using an add-on for Drupal. Your choice!

4. Search engine optimization: Drupal CMS provides tools and add-ons for SEO. Install those add-ons in the CMS and you can ensure your website would never be ignored by search engine bots. Simply keep updating your website regularly with fresh content, and you can definitely hope to see a steady stream of web traffic.

These are just some of the reasons why Drupal content management system is preferred by webmasters of all kinds, ranging between those representing major multinational companies around the world and those running small, personal blogs of their own from computers in their basements. If you are planning to launch a website soon, this CMS should be the first one on your list of preferences.