Many businesses are under the impression that their Content Management System (CMS) website is a stand alone product that they can set and forget.
How-ever, this is not the case!
A CMS is a continual evolving platform that needs to be monitored and updated whenever new core updates are published by the creators of the CMS. Plugin updates are released by their respective developers which could be just as important to update.
An example of this would be your windows computer. When Microsoft releases an update – your computer alerts you when it’s ready to install. When you update – the vulnerability or issue in the code is repaired and all continues to run efficiently.
This is essentially the same as your website, whether it is built on the WordPress, Joomla, Drupal or one of the many CMS platforms available online today.
Why update my CMS website?
Updating your CMS website regularly will prevent disrupted functionality or in severe cases downtime and possible hacking attempts. To avoid the above you will need to understand the two types of updates each CMS has:
Core:
Core Updates are released by the creators of the CMS platforms. In most part the community alert them about any problems, they repair their code and make it into an update for all websites so they avoid any potential issue’s.
If you don’t update – then your website is still running on an old version of that platform which will still contain the vulnerability. If left over a period of time – missing out on many updates – problems are sure to arise.
Plugins, modules & 3rd party extensions:
Plugins, modules & extensions are made available to help others. These are usually created by businesses, web developers or CMS (open source) enthusiasts that dedicate their time for free to broaden the functionality to that particular CMS.
We have personally witnessed websites without their plugins updated develop problems due to code being open for exploit. There are times when your hosting provider may also restrict access to your site for security reasons until such problems are resolved. Always updating your plugins, modules & 3rd party extensions when possible is advised.
Updating Options.
When planning to update your CMS website you have a choice to make. The correct choice that suits your business depends on how confident you are with your website and web hosting solution, plus and just as important available time.
Updating the site is not as strait forward as one would expect and requires basic knowledge of web technologies, which is why you have a choice to either take on the task yourself (which we would advise you to at least give it a go!) or to have your web development team action this on your behalf.
If you have full trust in your web development team – then the second option is always the safest and most cost effective. Not only will the whole process be managed following strict best practice guide lines/procedures, but it will also save you time that can be better utilised on other task’s within the business.
For those who would like to update their CMS platform themselves – you can find many detailed and visual guides online, for example Google for “How to update my wordpress”. But before you go – we suggest that you read the remaining section of this blog, that contains some helpful advice to keep in mind.
Additional Advice & Tips:
1. It is recommended that you monitor and apply core updates as and when they appear in your admin area. If a website is not actively being updated with content – then it can be easy to forget about updates as you don’t see the messages that alert you when logging into the admin area.
Our professional opinion is to log into the admin area of the site once per month at the very least to see what’s available.
2. Those who have had a theme developed by their web developer or have many additional plugins installed on the site could find that after core update/s have been applied – their site doesn’t work as expected or it is broken all together.
Some plugins, modules & 3rd party extensions are only designed to work with certain versions of a particular CMS platform.
3. Last but not least – always take a full website backup before running any type of update process on your website. The backup must include all website files and the connected mysql database were all content and data is held.
Full backups can be completed within your web hosting control panel and doing this in advance of any updates will put you in a strong position to restore the site in the event of any issue’s arising.