Why Your Wordpress Site Needs To Be Up To Date

No website is "set it and forget it" anymore. A website needs to be maintained just like you must maintain a car with tune-ups and oil changes. Just like a car, you can defer maintenance for a while... but if you continue to do so, eventually something is going to happen.

Think of Plugins Like Apps for Your Website

While Wordpress is free, developers use plug-ins to add additional functionality to a website. Common plug-ins are things like calendars, image managers and forms. Plug-ins are developed by the Wordpress community and usually made available for free or with a free version. Most Wordpress sites have 20 or more plug-ins.

Just like your website, these plug-ins need to be maintained. This can be a lot of work for the creator and if the plug-in becomes popular, he or she may decide to start charging for those services. Most of the time, the plug-in will be provided on a yearly subscription so the developer is paid to continue releasing:

Security Updates. New security vulnerabilities are found all the time. Regular updates fix these before they become an issue.

Bug Fixes. Sometimes another update causes a plug-in to break or the plug-in itself may have a bug. Updates fix these issues.

Compatibility Updates. Hosting servers, browsers and other software is constantly changing. Plug-ins need to keep up.

New Features. Developers like to make improvements and add features based on community feedback or to make the plug-in more useful to a wider range of websites.

Most people underestimate just how often Wordpress needs to be updated. Hackers are finding vulnerabilities faster than ever and with 20+ plug-ins on your website, it is a lot to keep up with. Wordpress and its various plug-ins often have two or three updates per day.

Why Do We Have To Pay?

Just like Wordpress and the internet itself, plug-ins are not a finished product. More and more, developers are spending so much time on these updates that they move to a subscription model. You pay a yearly fee, and in exchange you get the on-going maintenance and updates necessary to keep the plug-in going.

Why Does This Matter More Than Ever?

Technology is constantly changing and with the rise of AI, the process of finding and exploiting vulnerabilities can happen much faster than it has in the past.

Going back to the car maintenance analogy, if the manufacturer of your vehicle identifies a safety issue and initiates a recall, you don't want to continue driving around just because the car still works. You want it fixed. Website maintenance is preventative.

"But My Website Still Works"

This is one of the biggest misconceptions about website maintenance. An outdated website can look and function normally. In fact, hackers often leave everything looking normal so that the website owner believes everything is fine. Your website continues to function normally. Until it doesn't.

If you are hacked or miss an important update, it could lead to:

• Complete shut down. Website hosts are starting to making site maintenance a requirement. If your site is vulnerable, they could turn off your hosting or features necessary to keep the website running.
• A broken website. Something could stop working completely. Your website could even disappear or display something incorrectly.
• A security problem. If hackers gain access to the website, they could steal your customer's data, inject malicious code, redirect links or display obscene images or inappropriate text.
• A much bigger repair bill. The longer maintenance is deferred and expensive it is to update. If your site needs to be cleaned up after a hack, that could be damaging and expensive.

Regular site maintenance and updates are much less costly than emergency repairs.

So What Do You Pay Us For?

Maintenance isn't clicking an "update" button... you're paying for someone to pay attention to your website. We're monitoring software that keeps your website running, keeping licenses active and watching for compatability issues after updates occur.

The plug-in license is paid to the company or person who develops the plug-in. Our maintenance fee covers the time and expense required to manage all of the updates on your website.