Every time a new WordPress update is released, we receive several emails from users asking if it is safe to update their WordPress site. Wondering if you should update your WordPress to the latest version? Want to know the pros and cons of WordPress updates and its plugins and themes? In this article, we’ll explain why it’s essential that you always use the latest version of WordPress and show you how to properly update WordPress.
WordPress is free and developed by a community of developers. With each new release, they fix bugs, add new features, improve performance, and enhance existing features to stay up to date with new industry standards.
So, in other words, when you don’t update your WordPress site, you risk your website’s security and miss out on new features or improvements.
1. Security
Security is arguably the most important reason why you need to keep your WordPress website up to date.
WordPress currently powers 63.6% of all websites worldwide (source). Due to its immense popularity, WordPress is a popular target for hackers, malware distributors, data thieves, and those who want to become hackers.
Since WordPress is open source, anyone can study the source code to learn and improve it. However, this also means that hackers can also study it and find ways to break into websites.
Now the good part is that not all hackers are bad. There are many more good hackers than bad ones, which means security experts everywhere can study the code and properly report security bugs/fixes. Whenever a security vulnerability is reported, the WordPress core team works diligently to release an update that resolves the issue.
This means that if you are not using the latest version of WordPress, you are using software with known security vulnerabilities. Hackers can search for websites running the old version, and you might fall victim to a sophisticated attack.
Not only WordPress itself, but plugins and themes can also be exploited by hackers. You need to make sure that all of your WordPress plugins, themes, and the core itself are always up to date.
2. Exciting new features
Each major release of WordPress includes new features and changes to the software. For example, WordPress 5.0 came with a new and improved code editor, named Gutenberg, 5.1 introduced the WordPress Site Health feature, and 5.2 through 5.5 came with improvements to the new code editor.
Now, if you were using an older version of WordPress, your WordPress experience would be very different from someone using the latest version.
You will have a hard time finding WordPress help online because you are using an older version. Users of the WordPress support forums will assume that you are using the latest version of WordPress.
3. Speed
New releases can often come with the option to improve your website speed. Speed is an important factor in SEO and improving page load times can play a big role in reducing bounce rates and retaining your visitors. Keeping WordPress, its plugins, and the theme up-to-date will ensure you get optimal performance.
4. Bug fixes
Despite rigorous testing of major WordPress releases, bugs can sometimes slip through the cracks. This is why there are minor versions of WordPress (the ones with X.X.X) to take this into account. For example, the latest WordPress 5.5.1 update fixed 39 bugs from version 5.5 (source).
Now, if you go to the WordPress support forums asking for help, the first tip you will get is to update WordPress as that may fix the problem. If you insist on not updating WordPress, you will not be able to receive help.
5. Compatibility (or NOT)
Often, plugin and theme developers coordinate their updates with major WordPress releases to ensure they take advantage of new features and improvements available.
However, in some cases, an update can break your existing WordPress plugins if they don’t follow best practices and coding standards.
This is why it is essential to keep regular WordPress backups.
To sum up, the only downside is that in rare cases, your site will break. However, the advantage is that you have:
- Improved WordPress security
- New WordPress Features
- Faster WordPress experience
- A bug-free WordPress site
- Better compatibility
Now that you know why it’s important to keep your WordPress site up to date, let’s take a look at how to update WordPress.
How to Keep Your WordPress Site Up to Date
Updating your WordPress core, plugins, and themes whenever there is a new update for them is quite easy. WordPress comes with a built-in update notification system. It highlights the number of updates available when you log into your WordPress dashboard.
All you have to do is visit the Dashboard » Updates page and install those updates. It is a one-click process.
All you have to do is visit the Dashboard » Updates page and install those updates. It is a one-click process.However, since many website owners don’t log into their WordPress dashboard daily, they may not even know an update is available for days, weeks or even months. Fortunately, you have a few options.
If you are using WordPress 3.7 or newer, automatic updates are enabled for minor releases (for security and bug fixes only). You can enable automatic updates for major releases, extensions, and themes.
Alternatively, you can receive email notifications when there is a new update for your WordPress site.
Receive email notifications for updates in WordPress
When you’re busy running your business, logging into your site to check for updates is usually the last thing on your mind. Wouldn’t it be easier if you could get an email notification whenever there are updates to your WordPress sites?
Well, it is possible.
The first thing to do is to install and activate the extension WP Updates Notifier. Upon activation, visit Settings » Update Notification to configure extension settings.
This plugin uses WordPress scheduled recurring tasks to check your site for hourly updates. You can change this to once or twice a day. When a new update is available, this extension will send you an email notification.
By default, it checks for core WordPress updates, plugin updates, and theme updates. All you have to do is click save settings with the test email button.
Automatically install WordPress updates
You can automate the process even more. WordPress allows you to enable automatic updates for major versions, extensions, and themes.
This option is risky if you are not using specialized WordPress hosting or a WordPress monitoring plan. These services allow either to have backup copies if the updates break your site or even to do the updates and checks for you.
If you enable automatic updates, there’s a slight chance that your site won’t work and you won’t be online to fix it right away. That said, if you want to enable automatic updates, there are two ways to do so (extension method and code method).
Let’s take a look at the extension method first.
First you need to install and activate the plugin Easy Updates Manager. Upon activation, you must visit the Dashboard » Update Options page to configure the extension.
Now you need to scroll down to the automatic updates section where you can enable automatic updates for core, extensions, themes and translation files. Once you’re done, just save your settings.
Enable automatic updates using wp-config file
You can enable automatic updates for WordPress core by simply adding this line to your wp-config.php file.
define('WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE', true);If you also want to automatically update your themes and plugins, then you need to add them to your theme’s functions.php file or a site-specific plugin.
add_filter('auto_update_plugin', '__return_true');
add_filter ('auto_update_theme', '__return_true');Regardless of the method chosen, it is essential to ensure that your host makes regular backups in the event of a problem before activating automatic updates.
Fortunately, we offer WordPress monitoring plans and specialized WordPress hosting to ensure that all Caffeine websites are backed up and updated, and therefore secure and easy to scale over time.
Need help keeping your WordPress site up to date?
Josée Barrette
I started working in the web industry in 2005 as a project manager/coordinator. Subsequently, I led production teams and project managers. In 2014, I decided to put my knowledge and experience at the service of small businesses and self-employed workers.