The consequences of not updating your WordPress plugins regularly can be severe and may lead to your site not working, being locked out and direct and indirect financial losses. In some cases you might be locked out of the back end of your site. Fixing problems arising from outdated plugins can be a long and expensive process.
Outdated plugins can give rise to:
- Security vulnerabilities: Plugins are often targeted by hackers because they can be a way to gain access to a WordPress website. Outdated plugins are more likely to have security vulnerabilities, which can be exploited by hackers to steal data, install malware, or take down your website.
- Compatibility issues: When you update WordPress, the new version may not be compatible with outdated plugins. This can cause errors, crashes, or other problems with your website.
- Performance issues: Outdated plugins can slow down your website. This can make your website less user-friendly and can also impact your search engine ranking.
- Feature loss: Plugins are constantly being updated with new features. If you don’t update your plugins, you may miss out on new features that can improve your website.
- Data loss: In some cases, outdated plugins can corrupt your website data. This can lead to data loss, which can be a major problem for businesses and organisations.
To avoid these dangers, it’s important to update your WordPress plugins regularly. You should also make sure to only install plugins from trusted sources.
The more complex your site and the more plugins you’re using the more important it is to stay on top of the updates.
Here are some tips for updating your WordPress plugins safely:
- Back up your website before updating any plugins. This will help you restore your website if something goes wrong.
- Only update plugins one at a time. This will help you identify any plugins that are causing problems.
- Test your website after updating each plugin. This will help you make sure that the update didn’t cause any errors.
You can follow those tips to update your plugins or for a small monthly sum (currently $20pm +GST) avoid the risks and worry and let fortunegreen do your updates for you. We not only update the plugins but we back up your site first and test that the site is still functioning optimally.