WordPress Script Updates ARE Important

WordPress is an open source script that is constantly under development. They are currently on a schedule where updates roll out approximately every 60 days.

These updates might be security updates, the rollout of new features or a combination of the two.

Third party plugins that many webmasters run may or may not have scheduled update cycles but security fixes, new features and changes in the core WordPress script often necessitate the need for an update.

Search engines are starting to pay attention to the WordPress blog version being run. They’ve noticed that most of the junk blogs using scraped content and either affiliate ads or Adsense as a monetization method are seldom, if ever, upgraded once they are installed.

Since that type of blog offers little or no value to the searchers, the search engines do NOT want them to show near the top of the results. To help prevent a non-upgraded but keyword optimized blog that contains junk content from ranking high, the blogs that aren’t kept current with the new releases of the WordPress script are penalized for running the older script.

Even if the search engines didn’t pay attention to which version of the script you are running, you should because of the bug fixes and security enhancements that are often included in new releases.

Whether you are new or a veteran, it is extremely important that you back up your files and database before you update ANY plugin or the WordPress script.

You must understand that the automatic upgrades sometimes fail and the site must be restored to the previous version before another upgrade attempt is made.

If you aren’t comfortable backing everything up OR you prefer to outsource this chore, you need to know that the upgrades are being done and you can focus on building your business.

Feel free to open a support ticket at my Help Desk to get a quote on my back up and maintenance service.