The Importance of WordPress Updates

WordPress is an open-source software. There is an incredibly large community of contributors working endlessly to improve it. This kind of development is important for keeping WordPress fast and secure.  It also means that each month is at least one, and sometimes multiple updates. Just like any piece of software, updating it is not only important but necessary to ensure a secure, stable, high performing website. It is not just WordPress, but often some of the additional software that we use to make the site look and function as you want. WordPress, just like Windows can be thought of as the operating system. You then add programs such as Word or Outlook so that you have the functionality you want. These same kinds of updates are more important for WordPress since it is a website facing the public, unlike your PC. Here are some of the reasons why it is important to update WordPress.

Security

The most important reason to keep your WordPress site up to date; updates often feature security enhancements that prevent sites from being exploited. Because WordPress is open-source, it has the resources of a large community of developers and security experts who are constantly testing every version of the software and properly reporting security fixes. Failing to update the latest version of WordPress can make your site an easy target for hackers and malicious code distributors.

Bug Fixes

Every release of WordPress goes through a rigorous testing process, however some smaller bugs slip through the cracks, and hackers are constantly looking for these cracks. This may or may not affect your website, but it is always a good idea to update WordPress in order to reduce any issues caused by bugs.

Speed

As technology continues to evolve WordPress developers are always examining ways to make WordPress run faster and more efficiently. By keeping your WordPress site up to date you will provide not only a better user experience, but improve your site’s search engine rankings.

New Features

Every new release of WordPress includes new features tailored to improve the user experience. Past improvements include the ability to easily include embeds in text and video widgets, a redesigned plugin directory, and inline link editing via the visual post editor. Updating WordPress will only improve your ability to add new content to your site.

How do you handle this?

aha! in conjunction with our partner Complete Computer Solution of NJ, we offer maintenance plans to ensure all of our websites are backed up and updated, and thus, secure and easy to scale over time. Think of this as an insurance policy; we hope your site never gets hacked, but if it does, do you want to have to pay to have it rebuilt, or just know that we will take care of it for you.  For more information about our website maintenance services, please contact us today!