Why Is Upgrading Wordpress Important?
Like all software, Wordpress is periodically upgraded to make improvements and fix security loopholes. It is very important to keep your Wordpress installation up-to-date so that malicious hackers won’t exploit those loopholes and wreak havoc on your site. Sometimes an upgrade may break plugins on your site due to incompatibility, but the small problems you might encounter are nothing compared to the headache of dealing with a hacked site.
upgrading wordpress = easy
repairing a hacked site = hard
To keep your site secure, you need to ensure that:
- Wordpress is up-to-date
- Plugins are up-to-date
- Your Web host is keeping its software up-to-date
Wordpress
When a new version of Wordpress becomes available, you’ll see a notice at the top of the screen in your Wordpress admin dashboard:
Figure 1. Reminder to Upgrade Wordpress
Plugins
When a plugin upgrade is available, you’ll see a reminder link on the Plugins main page, where all of your plugins are listed:
Figure 2. Reminder to Upgrade Wordpress Plugin
Step 1: Back Up Your Web Site Files and Wordpress Database
If you have read and followed our tutorial on backing up your Wordpress site, you are good to go. You want to have a copy of your Web site files (especially your plugins, in case the Wordpress upgrade breaks any of them), and a copy of your database.
Step 2: Upgrade Wordpress
You can upgrade Wordpress right from your dashboard. Click that reminder link (shown in Figure 1), and you will be given the option to download the latest Wordpress source or to upgrade automatically. You can do either, but it’s easier to click the Upgrade automatically button and be done with it.
You also can upgrade plugins with one click from the Plugins page, as shown in Figure 2.
Step 2.5: Update Your Theme to Replace Any Deprecated Code, If Necessary
You won’t have to deal with this often. Contact a professional for assistance if you feel like you’re in over your head.
Step 3: Check Your Site for Problems
Now visit your Web site and make sure everything is working. If it looks fine, you’re finished!
Uh Oh! Something’s Wrong!
The most common problem you’ll run into is that the Wordpress upgrade is incompatible with a plugin (or vice versa).
- You can visit the plugin home page (the link will be available on your Plugins page below the plugin’s name) and see if the plugin developer has made a compatibility fix.
- If the problem happened after upgrading the plugin, you can try reverting to your older plugin, which was backed up in your Web site files. Upload the old plugin source folder to this location with your FTP client to yourwebsiteroot/wp-content/plugins.
- Restore your old Web sites files and Wordpress database and start the upgrade process over.
- Consult a professional for assistance.
