By: Martin Maciaszek
So you’ve finished your new WordPress website. Congratulations! But, this is not the end of your work with WordPress. On top of your regular content updates (you are updating your content, right?), you will also need to maintain the software that runs your website. Keeping your website software updated is a good first step toward a secure and well-maintained online presence. There are three primary areas you might need to update on your website. These include:
- WordPress Core Software
- Plug-ins
- Theme(s)
WordPress Core
There is a new WordPress update every 4-6 weeks. Most of these updates are security updates and bug fixes. Every now and again, they will include feature updates, such as 3.5’s media library update. But, for the most part, these updates are to help keep the software secure, and your website secure.
Plug-ins
A lot of plug-in updates will happen around the same time as updates to WordPress itself. Just like the updates to WordPress’ core software, these updates can add new features and fix existing bugs. Also, as WordPress gets updated, plug-ins must be updated to allow for and access any new programming built into WordPress.
Themes
Theme updates are traditionally less frequent than WordPress’ core and plug-in updates, but they are just as important. Primary reasons for updating themes include security and bug fixes.
How do you update your site?
When you log in to your administration control panel, you will notice a number with a double circle arrow next to it. These are the updates to your website. If you click on this button, you will see a list of the WordPress core, plug-in, and theme updates for your site.
To run these updates, click the check box next to them, and click “update.” I prefer to run my updates in groups. I run my WordPress core updates separately, then any plug-in updates in groups of five. Finally, I run my theme updates. After each group of updates, I will go spot check 3 to 5 pages on my website to make sure they still look correct. This way, if I see any issues I know the problem was with the last update that I ran.
But, before I run any updates, I backup my website. Now, I’m a little paranoid, so I backup my website using XCloner, then download that backup to my local hard drive. Once I have that backup, then I know if anything goes wrong during my updates, I can restore my website without too much hassle.
I check for updates once a week on my websites; once a month should suffice for the average website. But, since I’m usually writing articles more than once a week on my sites, I take a quick peek to see if there are any updates to run before I begin writing.
When you shouldn’t upgrade
There are times when it is not as easy as a couple of clicks to update your website. Unfortunately, you will probably find this out by breaking your site during an update. There are many reasons a particular update with cause a problem on your site. One reason is new bugs or errors in the software. Just like any piece of software, your website is prone to errors. With these kind of errors, the best you can do is roll back to an earlier version of the plug-in, theme, etc., and report to the developer the error that you had. Sometimes they will be able to help you figure out what went wrong and fix it.
The second reason you would not want to run an update is customization done by your developer. Good developers can write code to make your WordPress site do things that it wasn’t meant to do “out-of-the-box.” Great developers can write code that can also do that, as well as survive updates to the plug-in and theme software itself. Unfortunately, the only person that might know if there were any modifications to a plug-in’s function is your developer. Usually asking your developer, “is it safe for me to update my WordPress software?” will help you get the answer you need. Some developers (myself included) might offer to update the software for you and future-proof any customizations for a small fee.
So, make sure your site stays healthy by keeping your software updated.
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