Launched initially as blogging software, WordPress has grown into an excellent content management system. WordPress offers its users an intuitive administrative interface and makes it easy for them to manage their website.
Similar to any other software and tool, WordPress too needs updation.
If you are contemplating whether you should go on with the latest version of WordPress, this blog will help you.
Here are the top three reasons to update your WordPress.
Security and Bug Fixes
Being open-source software, the source code in WordPress is readily available. While this feature makes the platform accessible, it has also made it vulnerable to attacks from hackers.
The threat to the security breach has made WordPress developers release frequent updates. The updates to core plugins and themes are mostly aimed at preventing attackers from breaching the security of the website.
However, it’s seen that 49% of the major sites aren’t using the latest version of WordPress. Using outdated versions of PHP, themes, and plugins is a primary reason why WordPress sites often get hacked.
The latest version of WordPress that was released in December 2019 (5.3.2) included fixes for following security issues.
- Sticky posts by an unauthorized user via REST API
- Storage of cross-site scripting in well-crafted links.
- Hardening wp_kses_bad_protocol.
- Use of block editor content to store XSS
New Features
WordPress updates also bring with it some exciting new features like;
- Improvements in theme installation
- New gallery widget
- An option to draft and revise posts along with scheduling them
- oEmbed support for text widgets
Speed
Updates are also known to improve the speed of your website. We all agree that speed is an essential factor in SEO. The updates to WordPress can fasten the loading time and play a significant role in reducing the bounce rates of the web pages. This will help you in keeping the users engaged and make them stay on your page for a longer duration.
WordPress updates help you maximize the performance benefits without incurring any additional cost!
While there are various advantages in updating your WordPress, plugins, and themes, there are certain aspects that need to be kept in mind before installing them.
Things to Remember When Updating WordPress
As you must be aware, running a WordPress website involves the usage of a variety of third-party themes and plugins.
If these themes and plugins are not updated regularly, they may no longer remain compatible with the latest versions of WordPress. Such issues may eventually cause your website to break down at the end.
However, keeping a regular backup of your website can help you prevent such a situation.
Backups will help you roll back to the latest version of the update and look out for the plugin or theme that’s causing problems.
Make sure the next time you install a plugin from a third-party source, you check it’s compatibility with your existing WordPress version.
We hope you don’t miss out on your next WordPress update!
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