Keep your WordPress plugins up to date
May 25th, 2016
If your website is powered by the popular WordPress CMS then it is important to ensure that your software and plugins are kept up to date on a regular basis. Doing this ensures that you are using the latest version of the software with all the latest features and security updates to help protect your website from attack.
If budget allows it is often better to get your website developer to manage these updates for you, however, should you want to manage them yourself you need to be aware of a number of things:
- Always back up everything first!
- Maintain regular updates
- Always test major WordPress and plugin updates on a development server first (if possible)
- If stuck, ask an expert!
Ensure you backup your database and website files first.
In most cases software and plugin updates go smoothly but on the odd occasion there might be an issue with one of the updates or a conflict with your website theme. If you make a full backup then you can easily roll back the website or plugin update. On more complicated websites (e.g. eCommerce) it is really advised you use an expert to run the update first on a development version of your website so they can check for any bugs or issues with any new releases.
How often should I update?
WordPress normally releases a major new version every 6 months, this is thoroughly tested before launch. Other plugins will release updates all of the time, we would advise updating as often as possible or at least once every couple of months.
I have a plugin issue I can’t resolve
Ideally you would run the updates on a development version of your website first, if this is not possible, then first thing to try would be disable the plugin then remove it (ensuring it is not going to delete any data). You would then upload the plugin again from your back up files, then try running the update again. If you are still hitting issues you can either contact the plugin author or your web developer.
I have a plugin issue I can’t resolve
Ideally you would run the updates on a development version of your website first, if this is not possible, then first thing to try would be disable the plugin then remove it (ensuring it is not going to delete any data.
WordPress management
At Dreamabstract we offer a WordPress management service where we will ensure your WordPress software and plugins are kept up to date for you saving you the time to concentrate on more important things!