WordPress is one of the fastest-growing CMS platforms. Almost half of the world uses WordPress as the management system for their websites. From blogging, affiliate marketing, to even eCommerce, dropshipping, and more. The WordPress eCommerce platform supports everything.
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Here is a glimpse of how popular WordPress is among the digital folks. The reason it has become so popular is because of its easy-to-use interface. Moreover, WordPress is open-source, so users of the platform can easily customize the website as per their needs.
Whether someone wants to add new functionality to the platform or want to get your website live within seconds, both are possible on WordPress.
It is so easy to customize that you can get a plugin like Elementor to add that feature. Otherwise, you can also get a developer to do the same thing for around $100. This is much less in comparison with customizations on Magento, Drupal, and Joomla.
Source – BuiltWith
The problem of WordPress updates
However, the most irritating thing with WordPress is, its updates. Last year, WordPress sent over 80 updates to its users. Most of these updates included patches to loopholes in the platform. There were only two major updates that marked the change of a version.
But, these updates can sometimes mess up the site structure. So, in this article, we will discuss why WordPress updates are necessary, and if you should install them on your system or not.
Why WordPress sends updates in the first place?
WordPress sends updates to its users to curb threats, patch codes, add new features, or provide a completely new version. Some of these are necessary, like code patches, while others can be installed later.
However, the problem is, all WordPress updates are automatic. Users don’t have the option to change WordPress updates permissions unless they get to the core and add a few snippets of code (which we will be doing in this article).
But before that, let’s learn about the benefits of WordPress updates.
Benefits of Updating WordPress Sites
- Stay secure
WordPress updates let you keep your site safe. The patches are updated automatically so that hackers don’t get illegal access to your data.
- Faster performance
WordPress is continuously improving the performance of the CMS by following the latest coding practices. So, you must keep your sites updated with the latest WordPress updates. This will ensure the faster performance of the website and preferable user experience.
- Reduces workload
WordPress is only 50MBs in size. But newer WordPress versions are even lighter. When the CMS is bulky, it has more resources that are helpful for the developers. But these resources can increase server size. WordPress updates keep that in check by altering the code and reducing workload.
- New features
Another great benefit of WordPress updates is that they offer new features that were not available before. Take Gutenberg. It has completely revamped the way you use WordPress now.
Drawbacks of Updating WordPress Sites
Similar to the benefits of WordPress updates, many disadvantages of the CMS also exist. Let’s discuss the major ones.
- You Can Lose Traffic
Although the cases are rare, WordPress can decrease the number of visitors coming to your website by 1. Decreasing site rankings, 2. Adding more permissions to the site.
- Your Site Could Crash
Some users have reported that WordPress automatic updates are the reason their websites crashed. While WordPress doesn’t change the site structure in any way when updated, but if you are using third-party plugins for the layout of your website, they can become unsupportive after a change in WordPress version. This will directly impact the site layout, and it will break. Resultantly, your site will crash.
- You Could Lose Data
When your site crashes, you will lose all the data available on it. Therefore, it is essential that you backup your website daily. If your website is not updated daily, you can schedule weekly backups. But do ensure to backup the data; otherwise, an automatic update can wreak havoc for your business.
Read my detailed article on the Best WordPress Hosting 2020
Disabling WordPress Automatic Updates
Here is how you can easily disable WordPress automatic updates on your website.
1. Adding a Code Snippet
The first way to disable WordPress’s automatic update is by adding a code snippet to your website.
You will have to open the WordPress wp-config.php file.
Now add the following code to it:
define( ‘WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE’, false );
The above process will disable all automatic updates on WordPress.
2. Using a WordPress plugin
Next, the option is to use a plugin like Update Control. You can use this WordPress plugin to control what type of updates you want on your website. The plugin can disable updates on how to update a WordPress theme. This will not mess up the layout of your WordPress website in the future.
Final Verdict
WordPress only does two major updates every year. When it sends a new update, there is an announcement on the official website. Tech publications around the world also cover the news of the update.
You will also see the message on your WordPress CMS platform. These significant updates include a change of version, new features, and layout changes. When updating your website, check the WordPress version before updating it.
All other WordPress updates are minor and relate to code patches, themes, plugins, and other relevant areas. You can disable them from automatically updating your WordPress website without the fear of losing your site data.
If you have accidentally messed up your website by installing WordPress updates, you can always get in touch with The WPHelp team. WPHelp team offers remote safeguard maintenance support so that your website can keep running all the time without a problem.
