If you’ve ever logged into your WordPress website and been greeted by a sea of little red notification bubbles, you’re not alone. It’s one of those things that looks alarming, gets ignored, and then quietly causes problems.
Here’s what’s actually going on and what you should do about it.
Why does WordPress have so many updates?
WordPress is made up of three separate things that all update independently: WordPress itself, your theme, and your plugins. Each one is built and maintained by different developers, and when they release fixes, improvements, or security patches, they show up in your dashboard as pending updates.
A site with twenty plugins can easily have several updates waiting at any given time. That’s not a sign something is wrong. That’s just how WordPress works.
Why you can’t just ignore them
This is where it gets important. Updates aren’t just about new features. A lot of them are security patches, fixes for vulnerabilities that hackers actively look for and exploit. An outdated plugin isn’t just a minor inconvenience, it’s a potential door into your website.
We’ve seen sites get compromised because of a single outdated plugin sitting ignored in the dashboard. It happens more than people realise, and cleaning up a hacked site is a lot more painful than keeping things up to date.
Why you can’t just click update on everything either
Here’s the part that trips people up. Updates can break things.
Plugins are built by different developers who don’t always test their updates against every theme and every other plugin combination out there. Sometimes an update that works perfectly on one site causes something to stop working on another. A form that breaks, a layout that shifts, a whole page that goes blank.
This is why we never just click update all and hope for the best.
What you should actually do
This is the bit that matters. Done right, updates are straightforward. Done carelessly, they’re how things go wrong.
Step 1: Take a backup first. Every time.
Before you touch a single update, make sure you have a current backup of your site. Files and database, not just one or the other. If something breaks after an update, a backup is the difference between a ten minute restore and a very bad day. If you don’t have a backup plugin running automatically, sort that before anything else.
Step 2: If you have a staging site, use it
A staging site is a private copy of your website where you can test updates before they go live. Update everything there first, click around, check your forms, check your checkout if you have one, and make sure nothing has broken. If it all looks good, you can update your live site with confidence.
Not everyone has a staging site set up, and that’s okay. But if you’re running a site where downtime or broken pages would cost you money, it’s worth having one.
Step 3: Update in small batches, not all at once
Don’t hit update all and walk away. Update a few plugins at a time, then check your site. That way if something does break, you know exactly which update caused it rather than having to guess across twenty changes.
Start with plugins you know are low risk, things like SEO tools or analytics plugins. Leave your page builder, theme, and WooCommerce or any ecommerce plugins until last as these are the ones most likely to cause visible issues if something goes wrong.
Step 4: Check your site properly after each batch
Before you check, clear your cache and view the site in a private or incognito browser window. Caches can show you an old version of the site that looks fine even when something is broken, and some issues only show up to logged out visitors rather than when you’re logged into WordPress.
Then actually check it properly, not just glance at the homepage. Click through your main pages. Submit a test enquiry through your contact form. If you have a shop, add something to cart and go through the checkout process. Check on mobile as well as desktop. You’re looking for anything that looks wrong, broken, or different to how it was before.
Step 5: Update WordPress core carefully
Minor WordPress updates, the small point releases, are generally safe to apply promptly as they’re usually security and bug fixes. Major version updates deserve a bit more caution. They can occasionally cause compatibility issues with themes or plugins that haven’t caught up yet. Check that your key plugins are compatible before updating, and if you’re unsure, wait a week or two for the dust to settle.
Step 6: If something breaks, don’t panic
Restore your backup, take a breath, and figure out which update caused the issue. Most of the time it’s a conflict between a plugin and your theme or another plugin, and there’s usually a fix available fairly quickly once you know what you’re dealing with.
Can you do this yourself?
If you’re comfortable in your dashboard and you’ve got backups sorted, handling updates yourself is completely doable. It just takes a bit of time and attention each month.
If you’re not confident, don’t have backups in place, or genuinely don’t have the headspace to do it properly, that’s what a care plan is for. Updates, security monitoring, backups, performance checks, and someone to call when something goes wrong. It’s the whole picture, not just the notifications.
Either way, please don’t just leave those notifications sitting there. That’s how the problems start.
Get in touch here if you’d like us to take it off your hands.
get in touch