Why update WordPress plugins regularly?
An outdated WordPress website is not good for your business. Updating your website regularly helps ensure it performs to optimum efficiency. However, website maintenance is not just about site analytics and fixing broken links.
It’s equally important to update your WordPress core and the plugins. Here are some of the benefits of updating WordPress plugins regularly.
Better Security
Outdated plugins are vulnerable to security breaches. In fact, 9 out of 10 breaches happen via outdated plugins.
The good news is that plugin developers are working constantly to fix issues and provide updates to keep your website secure.
By updating your WordPress plugins, you can not only ensure your website is secure, but you can also experience improved performance.
Latest Features
Another huge benefit of updating WordPress plugins is that you get access to the latest features.
Developers aim to make their plugins better in terms of aesthetics, user experience and performance. So, whether it’s a performance improvement or an aesthetic improvement, updating your plugins is sure to improve the experience for you as well as for your visitors.
Improved Speed and Performance
As with any other software, plugin updates ensure your website stays quick and nimble. Outdated WordPress plugins can cause glitches or worse yet, your website may not perform properly.
Your website’s user experience, page load speed and core web vitals have a direct impact on your search engine rankings. If your website is slow to load or an important plugin does not work properly, visitors will leave your website.
This, in turn, will affect the rankings of your website in Google, which can affect your revenues.
Compatibility
The latest version of WordPress runs on PHP 8.1. Released on 25 November 2021, PHP boasts an array of features, deprecations, performance improvements and backward compatibility.
Because this is a new programming language, WordPress and plugins require constant updates to fix any issues and bugs that crop up.
In the absence of these updates, your website could become incompatible with PHP 8.1, and in the worse scenario, it may even crash.
Updating your plugins to the latest version ensures that they are compatible with each other.
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