• Official WordPress Common APIs Handbook, Database API.
• Syed Balkhi and Editorial Staff. Beginner’s Guide to WordPress Database Management with phpMyAdmin. WP Beginner, 2014.
  • Title is somewhat misleading. This article covers the default database table structure AND how to use phpMyAdmin to cover it.
• Kevin Muldoon. Optimizing Your WordPress Database – A Complete Guide. wpmudev, 2019.
• Jack Kitterhing. MySQL and WordPress: Understanding How Databases Work. wpmudev, 2017.
• Sujain Thomas. Icebreaking the WordPress Database. torque, 2017.
• Daniel Pataki. The Developers Guide to the WordPress Database (and Writing Better Code). wpmudev, 2015.
• Iain Poulson. Tour of the WordPress Database. Delicious Brains, 2015.
• Shaumik Daityari. The WordPress Database Demystified. sitepoint, 2014.
• Josh Pollock. Why WordPress Projects Need a Proper Database Abstraction. Torque, 2016.
• Firdaus Zahari. Working with Databases in WordPress. sitepoint, 2016.
• Andy Adams. Finding and Fixing Slow WordPress Database Queries. css-tricks, 2015.
• WordPress Codex, Database Description.

Custom Database Tables

• Daniel Pataki. Creating Custom Database Tables for Your WordPress Plugins. wpmudev, 2017.

Database Tables

• wp_commentmeta
  • meta_id
  • comment_id
  • meta_key
  • meta_value
• wp_comments
• wp_links
• wp_options
• wp_postmeta
  • Used for both posts AND pages. This is where custom fields attached to a post/page would store their data.
  • $wpdb->postmeta
  • meta_id
  • post_id
  • meta_key
  • meta_value
• wp_posts
  • All content types are kept in the wp_posts table and are distinguished from one another by a post type. Default post types are post, page, attachment, revision, and navigation menu.
  • Navigation Menu – nav_menu_item – This is not an entire menu but a single navigational item on a larger menu.
• wp_terms
  • For the taxonomy system, contains categories, tags, and custom taxonomies.
• wp_term_relationships
  • When terms are hierarchical the relationship between one term and another is stored here. This table is being merged into wp_terms in the future.
• wp_term_taxonomy
  • Used to determine which terms are actually the root level of a taxonomy.
• wp_usermeta
• wp_users