You have a site and you think its going and doing fine from last 3 to 4 years and you do not think that there is no need to update the version of WordPress.
You are busy and did not notice that your wordpress site is running on old wordpress.
If this is the situation then, you are neglecting the health of your website which is getting you business or presenting you and your business online.
If you are not keeping your wordpress up to date it means that, you are leaving it alone to die.
Like you update your android phones or IOS based phones. Similarly is very imperative that you should update your website’s wordpress. It is very important that WordPress version of your website should be timely updated along with the plugins and themes that you are using. There are damn important reasons to update your site and here I am going to tell you 5 important reasons.
WordPress is freely available to everyone. WordPress is developed by a community of developers. The original developers of WordPress with each new release of WordPress version,
a) They make changes to the code and refresh it.
b) fix bugs which were there in old versions,
c) add new default features to WordPress,
d) improve performance and loading speed of WordPress,
e) and enhance existing features to stay up to date with new technology in the web industry.
If you are not keeping your website update with the latest releases by wordpress, you are risking your website security and missing out on new features / improvements.
1. Security
Is your website Secure when you receive payments? Is your website safe from hackers and malicious code injectors? Security of website is undoubtedly the Super important that, why you should keep your WordPress website updated to latest version of wordpress.
At present Approx 26% of all websites in the world are running on WordPress. This is really amazing number and tells about the popularity of wordpress in the internet industry. Because of such a great popularity WordPress based websites is a popular target for hackers, malicious code distributors, data thieves, specially for the new “Studying wordpress code and implementing ” hacking tricks is the first lesson for them in hacking industry.
Reason Being WordPress is open source software and anyone can download wordpress and can study its source code to learn and improve it. However it also means that hackers can also study it too and find ways to break into websites.
In simple words I want to mention that hackers are of two types “Bad hackers” and “Good hackers”. Bad hackers always look for loop holes to enter a website and kill it. Good hackers when ever came to know a loophole in code they close the door to enter website and thus release a fix, security patch or upper version to basic code.
What is the version of your wordpress just check that on your website back admin and then check this link to know that when it was released https://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Versions
So if your wordpress is of old version, it simply means that lot of research has already been done on old wordpress version by BAD hackers as compared to the latest releases of wordpress. And they can target your site. By targeting your site their objectives are
1) crash your website
2) steel your customer database
3) steel payment login information of your customers
4) enter malicious code into your website.
5) Entering code and running Spam from domain
6) all the search engine optimization work that is done by you will be dead and your website will fetch no visitors on queries.
When, any of such things is done by hackers on your website. Major search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, Yanzex) detects such activity automatically and but your site on blacklist. Being black list means your website will not be searchable on their search engines. So a website which is not appearing on search engine means death of site. Such websites are only visible when a user types the exact URL in the URL bar. Such websites do not appear with keywords used on Google.
Update WordPress Plugins
- As WordPress can be easily exploit by hackers similarly is the case of plugins. If you think that your website is a bit of later version and you are safe, then you are wrong if you use old plugins you are putting yourself to Risk. A single old plugin can bring hackers to your site
- Plugin life ;- if your pluginsare getting old and losing their compatibility with wordpress then in this case the plugin can self exploit and bring down all of your site.
So my suggestion is to use latest plugins and make sure they are compatible with the latest version of wordpress. The latest release of plugin also brings
1) More Security
2) Ease to use at back end.
2) Better features
4) speed performance.
Hackers using their techniques can search for websites running the older wordpress version, and your site can become a victim sophisticated attack and will tarnish your image on search engines and customers. It will further makes you to spend more to regain your website: - first you have to spend on making the site from scratch, Then coming out of blacklisted image on search engines, lastly you have to redo all the SEO on your website. For you it will be like starting the business from scratch.
It is Very strongly recommended to keep your WordPress Website, plugin and the theme to the latest stable versions.
2. Speed
Google Love fast sites and ranks site on its search engine that loads fast. Apart from this Google standards it is always the aim of developers to make their software fast to load. Only the softwares that are fast will survive on internet than the one which takes time to load. Same is the case with wordpress developers. WordPress Community developers when ever release the new version makes it sure that the new version is faster. New Stable Major WordPress upgrade comes with several performance improvements that make WordPress run faster and more efficient.
For example, WordPress 4.2 improved JS performance for navigation menus, and WordPress 4.1 improved complex queries which helped with performance of sites using those queries.
Since speed is a huge factor in SEO, it’s a huge factor according to Google standards you should definitely keep your WordPress updated to ensure maximum performance benefits.
3. Bug Fixes
There is no software that is an exception to the bug. Despite Various types of reliable and extensive testing .01% to 5% of crack in the software and sometimes bugs may slip through the cracks. Whenever a bug is found or reported in wordpress releases its patch or minor update to make your software bugs free and to give smooth experience to users and website owners.
That’s why there are timely wordpress notifications you might be receiving in your emails stating minor WordPress update releases.
Now if you go to WordPress support forums or wordpress developer asking for help to fix a bug on your site, the first thing you may listen is that you should get your website update to some version of wordpress , because a small upgrade version can fix bug in your site. Here I want to mention that Going further latest stable version has the power to fix the bugs that you might be facing in your old version. So why wait for such situation get yourself update.
4. Supports Responsiveness
Responsive websites are the latest trend and responsive sites are running the search engine and easily ranked on Google. The responsive technology came to trend in year 2013 and before that wordpress was software was desktop friendly only. From the year 2013 wordpress is releasing the version that supports responsiveness and hence makes it easy for your wordpress web designer to design your site bit easily.
5. Latest Version for sure New Features
Whenever a new Major Version is released for sure you not only get more security but it adds cool new features and changes to the basic wordpress software and hence increase the love bonding between wordpress sites and their owners. Now if you were using an older version of WordPress and update your wordpress to the latest one your wordpress experience will change a lot and you will love it. Latest version always brings more ease for the back admin users to manage the site.
6. Support to old versions is closed by wordpress and its developers
Now assume you are using Old wordpress version and you have some minor trouble on your old wordpress site and you need some help online. Users on WordPress Support forums and WordPress coders will not be able to help you because everyone else outside is using and talking about the latest or close to latest technology.
7. Difficulty to add new features
If your website is running on old version and you like some new feature that you also want to add to your site OR you like some new plugin with some nice feature and you want to add that to your site. In this case you will not be able to use or add that new feature because the plugin that you want to use will always be of latest technology and will be compatible with latest wordpress. There is no plugin in the online paid market or original wordpress site that fits best with your years old site. First you have to update your site to the latest version and only then you can make your site compatible with plugin and can use that plugin.
8. Engaging
User experience
Most updates to WordPress make your site look cool with features like quicker to load, easier to navigate and generally nicer to use which engage visitors of you site and encourage them to interact with your site more.
Summary
Keeping your WordPress installation up to date with the latest releases is an important part of managing and smooth functioning of any WordPress site. It will ensure that your site performs as efficiently as possible and will keep you away from bugs, Hackers. It keeps you future proof by running with latest technology and Google recommended standards.
Its is highly recommended that do not miss the two important factors mentioned in # 1 and # 2 of this post that is “Security from hackers”, “Speed of site”
