Why you should update WordPress every month

As with most software, WordPress should be kept up to date so that it remains secure. Updating also allows you to take advantage of fixes and tweaks.

How Do You Update WordPress?

One of the many advantages of the WordPress platform is that it tells you when it is due for an update. The updates area of the dashboard outlines what elements are due for the upgrade (e.g. plugins or themes). Updating WordPress is actually as simple as pressing a button.

Why Not DIY?

As the saying goes, where there is great power there is great responsibility.

Not all updates go through as they should and you need to be able to fix or rollback things if the update causes conflicts.

If you are highly experienced in troubleshooting WordPress issues, at a server-level, these types of updates should be of no concern. If you don’t have this level of expertise, enlist the help of a web development company to perform these updates for you.

You Don’t Know Your Way Around A Server?

That’s okay. Our WP updates are included as a part of our WordPress Support & Hosting Packages.

This Is How We Support Your Updates

Depending on the level of support you have opted for, we’ll update your site daily, weekly or monthly.

Our process is:

  • We backup your site and database
  • We review which plugins and themes need updating and check for core updates
  • We schedule and run plugin and theme updates
  • We review the site for plugin and theme conflicts to make sure that everything is working as it should
  • If there are issues resulting from the update, we investigate and fix them

What Can Go Wrong?

There are many potentials to mention but the more common issues are:

  • Theme and plugin conflicts
  • Plugin conflicts
  • Outdated plugins not compatible with newer WordPress versions
  • Updates that only partially completed
  • Server time-out problems
  • Website perpetually in maintenance mode

If something goes wrong after you have updated your site, usually you will want it fixed immediately.

Where there is no support contract in place, you’ll need to get in touch with us (or your web developers) and we may not be in a position to fix it immediately.

If you have a substantial website, an outage can be critical, so it’s a good idea to ensure you are covered. If you have a support plan with us, we drop everything to ensure your site is back up and running as soon as possible. And we update WordPress on your behalf so you no longer have to worry about breaking the site. It’s one more thing that you can take off your to do list.

Published on Thursday, 6 June 2019 under Support & Security.