Querying the database should be done using a WP_Query object Don't use query_posts(). It can affect other queries on the page because it reassigns the global wp_query object.

You can optimize your query by removing unnecessary queries.

• no_found_rows => true: useful when pagination is not needed (AJAX load).
• update_post_meta_cache => false: useful when post meta will not be utilized.
• update_post_term_cache => false: useful when taxonomy terms will not be utilized.
• fields => 'ids': useful when only the post IDs are needed (less typical).

Never use posts_per_page => -1, as this will return every single post in the query, which can have detrimental effects if you have a large number of posts. It's better to set a big number (500 or 1000) as the upper limit.

Direct database calls should be discouraged ($wpdb), as well as using get_posts(). But use them if you cannot avoid them. $wpdb is mostly used if you are creating and using custom database tables. get_posts() should be avoided, because its results are not cached.

You can read more about uncached calls in the WordPress VIP documentation.

Don't use post__not_in. If you need to skip posts, do it in PHP

<?php

$postsToExclude = [
    '123' => 1,
    '345' => 1,
    '2' => 1,
    '67' => 1,
];

$customQuery = new WP_Query([
    'post_type' => 'post',
    'posts_per_page' => 30 + count( $postsToExclude )
]);

if ( $customQuery->have_posts() ) {
  while ( $customQuery->have_posts() ) {
    $customQuery->the_post();
    if ( isset($postsToExclude[get_the_id()]) ) {
      continue;
    }

    the_title();
  }
}
?>

Try to avoid post meta queries if possible, that is, don't try to fetch posts by their post meta. Instead, use taxonomies to group posts. Taxonomy queries are fast and won't affect your performance.

On the other hand, fetching post meta if you know the post ID or if you are in a post/page is fast and can be used anytime.

<?php
// Don't do this:
$args = [
    'meta_key' => 'color',
    'meta_value' => 'blue',
    'meta_compare' => '!='
];

$query = new WP_Query($args);

// You can do this:
$color = get_post_meta(get_the_id(), 'color', true);

Avoid multi-dimensional queries—post queries. Examples are querying on terms across multiple taxonomies, or querying multiple post meta keys.

<?php
// Don't do this:
$args = [
    'post_type' => 'post',
    'tax_query' => [
        'relation' => 'AND',
        [
            'taxonomy' => 'movie_genre',
            'field'    => 'slug',
            'terms'    => ['action', 'comedy'],
        ),
        [
            'taxonomy' => 'actor',
            'field'    => 'term_id',
            'terms'    => [103, 115, 206],
            'operator' => 'NOT IN',
        ],
    ],
];

$query = new WP_Query($args);

It's better to do a query with the smallest possible number of dimensions, and then filter out the results with PHP.

Post status security

When setting the post_status to anything other than public, always add the 'perm' => 'readable' argument.

This is due to a possible information disclosure vulnerability, which you can read more about here: WP_Query docs.