Are you still scared of updating your WordPress? STOP!
While you might be afraid of updating, you are doing more harm than good. Not might, some, a little… more like A LOT. WordPress is tested out thoroughly and by the time each version update is available, there are many important areas covered. Glitches/ bugs, security, design, and more are just some of the general updates in each version. The most important: security and bugs.
If you are not up to date with your WordPress, not only is your site unsafe for yourself, but also your visitors and your web host. If you are self-hosted (pay for your web hosting outside of WordPress.com), most web hosts put in their user terms of service that the user is responsible for keeping their website up to date and secure, especially if the user is operating scripts.
In the case you are not sure if you are up to date, you can log into your WordPress and see the version listed at the bottom right hand corner of your WordPress administration panel. If it is not up to date, the area will tell you that you need to update. Also, on the left hand side of the administration panel, within the navigation under “Dashboard” is “Updates”. If there is a number there, that means something needs to be updated on your website.
There is no excuse to not update. If it is a matter that your version is a lot older, no worries… there is a tutorial for upgrading WordPress. In the case that your web host does not allow you to automatically update your site from the WordPress backend, you can always move to a host that does OR you could update using FTP. There is a tutorial for manually installing WordPress too.
In the case you are just plain scared of updating in general, no worries, there are many people in the WordPress Support forums that are willing to help. I am also willing to help too! So, are you still scared? You should not be. There are no more excuses to not update your WordPress powered site.
In those days, people had to FTP their updates directly to servers! These days, just a click would do it and still many of us don’t update. Its not safe, really.
You would be surprised how many web hosts still do not allow one-click automatic updates. It makes it difficult to update for some .
Keeping your website up-to-date is very important and WordPress makes it easy for all of us to know when to update and how to do it. Thanks for the article, we shouldn’t be afraid to get involved and keep up-to-date.
I agree with you Nile. However, that “minor” inconvenience should never be an excuse for getting updates, right?
Since switching to WordPress I haven’t looked back. I do get scared at times when there’s all kinds of updates required. So far I haven’t broken anything!
I am very much a traditional person and I don’t really need the new updates. I am a bit skeptical of what they will do to my blog.
Not even a tradtional person will want their site to become vulnerable to some of the security holes that are always being discovered and fixed. WordPress is heavily tested before each full version is released, so it is okay and safe to update. If you are uncomfortable with the one-click automatic updates, do a manual upgrade instead. 🙂
Before updating WordPress I still download all my files and the database just in case. Although I have never had a problem with WordPress messing up I do use other scripts that don’t update nearly as easy. That is probably why I do so. WordPress is by far the easiest script to update that I use myself.
wow, i seriously had no idea that it was this important to update ur wordpress site…my programmer told me not to update it because it might mess up some of the programming, but if im causing a risk to the people who come to my site, who cares what he says…….thanx for the advice 🙂
Unless your programmer did not code your WordPress theme incorrectly, there should be no problems updating. Your programmer seems to not be that familiar with WordPress to say that. Normally I hear that kind of stuff from inexperienced WordPress designers and developers. Let your programmer know that if he is not sure if something should or could be done with WordPress to visit the WordPress support forms at http://wordpress.org/support , sign up for a free account and ask any WordPress questions he needs answers to.
Every time there is a WP version update or a plugin I am petrified that it launch an avalanche of bugs, that will take hours to rollback…the joy of ever-changing technologies..
There only glitches that should occur is conflict between poorly written or even outdated plugins. WordPress has been really good about fixing bugs, even within a couple days. I would not be worried as WordPress is tested thoroughly before any major release candidates are public.