If you have a WordPress website, you’ve probably seen those little update notifications appear in your dashboard. WordPress needs updating. A plugin needs updating. Your theme has a new version.
It can be tempting to ignore them, especially when your website appears to be working perfectly well. But keeping WordPress updated is an important part of looking after your website. Updates can include security fixes, bug fixes, compatibility improvements, performance changes and new features.
And with WordPress currently powering around 40% of websites worldwide, it remains an attractive target for people looking for vulnerabilities in outdated websites. This doesn’t mean you need to panic every time you see an update notification. It simply means your WordPress website needs regular maintenance, just like any other piece of business technology.
What Needs Updating on a WordPress Website?
There are three main parts of a typical WordPress website that need to be kept up to date:
WordPress core
This is the main WordPress software your website runs on.
Your theme
The theme controls much of the design, layout and functionality of your website.
Your plugins
Plugins add additional features such as forms, SEO tools, eCommerce, security or page-building functionality.
These different parts need to work together.
When WordPress itself changes, plugin and theme developers may also release updates to maintain compatibility, fix problems or add support for newer features. WordPress officially recommends keeping the platform, plugins and themes up to date.
Why Do WordPress Updates Matter?
1. Security
Security is one of the biggest reasons to keep WordPress updated.
Updates often include fixes for vulnerabilities that have been discovered in WordPress itself, themes or plugins. In fact, WordPress released version 7.1.3 on 6 October 2026 as a maintenance and security release containing seven security fixes, with WordPress recommending that sites update immediately.
When a vulnerability becomes publicly known, leaving an affected piece of software outdated can mean leaving an unnecessary weakness on your website. Keeping everything current doesn’t mean your website can never be compromised. Nobody can honestly promise that. What it does mean is that you are reducing avoidable risk and making sure known security fixes have been applied.
2. Compatibility
A WordPress website isn’t one single piece of software.
Your website may combine:
- WordPress itself
- your theme
- a page builder
- contact forms
- SEO plugins
- security tools
- payment integrations
- booking systems
- dozens of other plugins
All of those components need to continue working together. If one part becomes badly outdated while everything else moves forward, compatibility problems can develop.
That might result in something small, such as a layout displaying incorrectly, or something more serious, such as a form, checkout or important piece of functionality no longer working properly. Regular maintenance helps prevent your website becoming several versions behind and much harder to update safely later.
3. Bug Fixes
Software sometimes contains bugs. Developers release updates to correct problems they have identified after a version has been released. Keeping WordPress, your theme and plugins updated means you benefit from those fixes rather than continuing to run an older version with known issues.
4. Performance
Updates can also contain improvements to how code runs, how resources are handled or how different parts of your website work together. That doesn’t mean every update will magically make your website faster.
Website speed depends on many things, including hosting, images, plugins, code, caching and the way the website has been built. But running outdated software can contribute to technical problems and means you may miss improvements introduced in newer versions.
5. New Features
WordPress continues to develop. New versions introduce changes to the editor, accessibility, performance, design tools and website management.
Plugins and themes evolve too. If your website remains significantly behind, you may miss useful features or eventually find that newer plugins and services no longer support the version you are running.
Should I Turn On Automatic WordPress Updates?
This is one area where our advice has changed over the years. Older versions of this article simply said no to automatic updates. Today, the answer is more nuanced.
WordPress has supported automatic background security and maintenance updates for many years, and individual plugins and themes can also have automatic updates enabled. For some straightforward websites, enabling automatic updates for carefully chosen plugins can make perfect sense.
For a more complex website, particularly an eCommerce site, membership website or website with custom functionality. We may prefer updates to be checked and tested rather than allowing every component to change automatically.
The important part is not whether an update is automatic or manual.
The important part is having:
- reliable backups
- a way to restore the website
- sensible update management
- somebody checking that the website still works afterwards
Should I Back Up My Website Before Updating It?
Yes. WordPress itself recommends having a current backup before updating. If an update creates an unexpected compatibility issue, a good backup gives you a way to restore the website. And don’t just assume that because your hosting company says “backups included”, everything is covered.
It’s worth knowing:
- how often backups are taken
- how long they are retained
- whether both files and the database are included
- how quickly they can be restored
- whether you can access them when needed
The right backup frequency depends on the website. A small brochure website that rarely changes may have very different requirements from an eCommerce website taking orders throughout the day.
Can a WordPress Update Break My Website?
Occasionally, yes. That’s one of the reasons proper maintenance involves more than clicking Update All and walking away.
An update can sometimes conflict with another plugin, theme or piece of custom functionality. That doesn’t mean the answer is to avoid updating indefinitely. It means updates should be approached sensibly.
Before making significant updates, make sure a current backup exists. For larger or more complex websites, testing changes on a staging version of the website can also be appropriate before applying them to the live site.
What Happens If I Never Update WordPress?
For a while, possibly nothing obvious. Your website may continue to look exactly the same. That’s partly why updates are so easy to ignore.
The problem is that underneath the surface, the website can gradually become more outdated.
You may eventually face:
- known security vulnerabilities
- incompatible plugins or themes
- PHP or hosting compatibility problems
- broken functionality
- difficulty installing newer features
- a much larger and riskier update job later
Keeping on top of maintenance little and often is usually far easier than trying to rescue a website that hasn’t been touched for several years.
Can I Maintain WordPress Myself?
Absolutely. We don’t believe every WordPress website owner has to pay somebody else to perform maintenance. If you’re comfortable managing WordPress, you can look after many of these tasks yourself.
You should understand how to:
- take and verify backups
- update WordPress core
- update plugins and themes
- check the website after updates
- test important forms and functionality
- monitor security
- deal with an update if something goes wrong
WordPress also has a Site Health area that can highlight a number of technical or security-related issues worth investigating.
If you have the time and confidence to manage your own website, that’s perfectly reasonable.
What If I Don’t Want to Maintain It Myself?
Then paying somebody you trust to maintain the website can make sense.
The key word there is trust.
Website maintenance shouldn’t be sold by frightening you with stories about hackers or suggesting your website will immediately collapse if you don’t buy a monthly package. You should understand what the service includes and why you’re paying for it.
At Poppy Design Studio, our approach is simple: if you want to maintain your own WordPress website, you can. If you would rather have us look after the technical side, we offer WordPress maintenance too. Either way, we would rather see your website properly maintained than neglected.
A Sensible WordPress Maintenance Checklist
As well as installing appropriate updates, it’s worth regularly checking the wider health of your website:
- Make sure reliable backups are running.
- Keep WordPress core up to date.
- Keep your active theme updated.
- Update your plugins.
- Remove plugins and themes you no longer use.
- Check important forms and functionality.
- Monitor your website for security problems.
- Review website performance.
- Check for broken links or obvious errors.
- Keep your PHP and hosting environment appropriately maintained.
- Review your content periodically so information remains accurate and useful.
Not every item needs doing every day or even every week. The right maintenance schedule depends on how active and complex your website is.
The Bottom Line
Keeping WordPress updated is one of the basic responsibilities that comes with owning a WordPress website. Updates help you apply known security fixes, maintain compatibility, resolve bugs and benefit from improvements made to WordPress, themes and plugins. They’re not a guarantee that nothing will ever go wrong.
They are simply part of sensible website ownership. And whether you manage those updates yourself or ask somebody else to do it, the important thing is that they are being managed.
If you’re unsure whether your WordPress website is being properly maintained, you can take a look at our WordPress Maintenance service or get in touch with Poppy Design Studio for a straightforward conversation.
No scare tactics. No pressure. Just help looking after your website properly.
