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Contents
- How does updating WordPress affect my website?
- Will updating WordPress have any other affect on my site?
- What happens if I update WordPress?
- What happens if you don’t update WordPress?
- How do I update WordPress without losing content?
- Why is it important to update WordPress?
- How long does it take WordPress to update changes?
- How to update WordPress from your dashboard?
- Why you should always backup WordPress before any update.
- “Does updating WordPress affect my website?”. Post conclusions.
Updating WordPress does affect your website because the update procedure will impact all files and folders in the core WordPress installation, including any core files used to execute it.
Any modifications you’ve made to those files will be lost if you upgrade without saving them. So it’s best practice to always backup all your websites files.
In fact, to be on the safe side make a copy of your entire WordPress website, including the WordPress cores previous version, just in case.
Will updating WordPress have any other affect on my site?
It’s also good practice to know beforehand on how updating WordPress will affect your site.
Therefore, be on the lookout for the following 8 possible changes to your website as a result of updating WordPress:
1. The name of the WordPress administrator account might change back to the default ‘admin’ instead of whatever you renamed it. If your site content is public, this may affect search engine rankings for your website.
2. All plugins must be re-activated after upgrading, and any modifications made to plugin code will be lost if they are not upgraded as well. If you upgrade the WordPress core, but not your plugins, they may no longer work.
3. Options set in one version of WordPress are not carried over to another version because each major release has its own options schema.
4. Plugins you have installed may not function properly going forward. This is only an issue if a plugin has modified a WordPress core file directly. Otherwise, it will continue to function as before.
5. Themes you’ve installed may not function properly going forward, or they may cause a blank white page or other strange behavior. It
6. New WordPress default themes, plugin files and new widgets may appear.
7. Changes to the database.
8. Changes to any of your custom files (like a new version of an included file); and new user options, etc. If you’ve made modifications that aren’t explicitly mentioned, there’s no guarantee that they won’t be affected as well.
In this post we are going to go into how updating WordPress can affect your website in more detail as well as answer some relevant questions regarding WordPress, updating it and the affect it can have on your website as well.
What happens if I update WordPress?
If you update correctly, nothing. WordPress doesn’t delete your content or break your site when an update is applied properly. If it did, we’d hear about it all the time on the support forums!
Every major release of WordPress includes changes to the database structure. This means that if you upgrade right over an older version, without backing up or doing something else, you have a high likelihood of losing data.
What happens if you don’t update WordPress?
If you don’t update WordPress but are using an old, unsupported version of WordPress it could contain security vulnerabilities that were fixed. In addition your older version might not display or function properly with the latest version of some/all of your plugins.
How do I update WordPress without losing content?
If you want to update the WordPress core files without losing content, you need to backup your site and store a copy of your existing installation, in case it’s needed later.
You also need to make sure that all themes and plugins are compatible with the new version.
This is not always possible because some plugins may be outdated by the time you upgrade (or you may not have updated them in a while).
So check that the current versions of your theme and plugins are up to date as well.
However, you will soon learn soon enough which aren’t compatible with the latest version of WordPress.
Which in that case contact the plugin’s and or your theme’s developer to find out when or if they are going to release a version of their software that is compatible with the latest version of WordPress.
If you don’t get an answer or they don’t plan on updating their software, you should try to find an equivalent theme or plugin that does work with the current version of WordPress and replace it as soon as possible.
Why is it important to update WordPress?
Updating WordPress is important for your website because it makes sure to keep your site up-to-date, secure and stable.
Keeping your WordPress installation up-to-date will ensure that you have the most current security updates available.
You also get new features with each update so being proactive in updating means taking advantage of what WordPress has to offer.
If you don’t update WordPress and your website is made using the latest version, it means that your site won’t be supported in the future (which could result in any number of issues).
Not updating and staying on an out-of-date version probably won’t cause a problem with your site right away however, eventually the security vulnerabilities and bugs found in older versions of WordPress will affect your site and could lead to a hacked website.
How long does it take WordPress to update changes?
It can take WordPress anywhere from a few minutes to a day or more to update changes. However, it will depend on the size of the update and which changes are being made to your installation.
In general, updates can take up to 5 minutes or less for small enhancements that don’t change any code (like minor point release upgrades).
For larger core or theme updates, the update process may take up to a few hours.
Also note that some parts of WordPress are autoloaded, meaning they only get loaded when you access them.
This includes things like your theme and plugins so even if an update is made available it’s possible that you won’t actually see the changes until you revisit each of your pages.
Every time you update WordPress it will take a bit longer for the changes to be made because WordPress has to run a database upgrade script in order for everything to work properly.
Updates from one version of WordPress to another are usually very quick and can be done in less than two minutes under normal circumstances. However, the update process may take longer if you are updating between major versions.
How to update WordPress from your dashboard?
To update WordPress from your dashboard is quite easy simply visit the Dashboard > Updates section.
If your current version of WordPress is not compatible with the latest update, you will see a message on this page that tells you which versions are now available.
Once you have decided to start the update process you can simply click on the “Update Now” button, if everything goes well your site should be updated in less than a minute or two.
If multiple items need to be updated, it could take WordPress up to 5 minutes or more to finish updating everything.
If you are seeing the message “A fatal error has occurred during update” when accessing your dashboard, see the troubleshooting section on WordPress.org for solutions.
Why you should always backup WordPress before any update.
Backing up your WordPress site before any update is important because it will allow you to restore your site if something goes wrong during the update.
Updates can go bad for a number of reasons, including conflicts with other plugins or themes, file permission errors and more.
All of these things could cause an error that leads to a broken website after applying an update which is why it’s important to have a solid backup in place.
The easiest way to backup your WordPress website is by using the UpdraftPlus plugin.
This backup plugin not only comes with a free version but it makes backing up your site extremely easy. It will automatically create an off-site copy of all of your files and database that you can store on Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3 and other cloud storage services.
If you’d like to make a backup of your site before upgrading, or if you don’t have a recent copy of your website, you should download and install the latest version of WordPress on a local copy of your webspace (for example, in a subfolder) first and test the new default theme and plugins.
In case you want to quickly provide a demo of your website, this procedure will make it easily accessible from inside the dashboard.
In case anything goes wrong during the upgrade process and you need to restore the site as it was over one hour ago, simply visit WordPress’ “Tools » Export” page and download a full backup of your site that was created before you installed the development version.
“Does updating WordPress affect my website?”. Post conclusions.
WordPress is a great CMS that will allow you to easily create, manage and update your site in just minutes.
However, when it comes to updates WordPress doesn’t have the best track record in terms of stability issues.
Unfortunately, even though the team behind WordPress has done their part in making updates easy for everyone they can’t guarantee that everything will go without a problem.
Updating WordPress is generally safe but there’s always the chance that something could unexpectedly go wrong during the update process.
Whether it’s an error during installation or your website becomes inaccessible after applying an update, chances are that you will need to restore your site at one point in time.
This is why it’s always recommended to backup your site before applying an update in case you need to roll back the changes.
But, most importantly, you should always make sure your website is running the latest version of WordPress.
The consequences down the road could be much worse than any temporary ones if you don’t.