Case Study: The Importance of WordPress Updates

wordpress

A colleague of mine in Australia let me know about an interesting case study they recently posted about how important it is to not only KEEP your WordPress website updated, but also to make sure that your WordPress Theme is compatible with the latest WordPress updates, and if it isn’t, how do you remedy the situation.

The Case Study involved a Firm of Accountants in Aspley,  a suburb in Queensland, Australia, who suddenly found their WordPress website wouldn’t post any new pages they created. Upon investigation it was revealed that the Theme of the website was to blame.

The Good and The Bad of  WordPress Site

If you’ve chosen WordPress for your website, you probably know that being an “open source” platform means any WordPress developers around the globe can have access to your site and work on it. If your website is on some web agency’s CMS solution, you are bound to that agency and they basically hold all the cards if a dispute should arise.

Another major draw card is that WordPress sites are easy for people who aren’t well versed in computer technology to  build and use.

It also helps that WordPress has a multitude of Themes and Plugins to help make each site unique and functional.

Sadly the same characteristics that make WordPress so popular are also it’s biggest weaknesses. For example the open source nature and variety of plugins create numerous critical security challenges. WordPress sites that aren’t properly maintained and locked down are a relatively easy target for hackers.

Another thing to watch out for is the theme. The increase in mobile internet usage means that themes need to be responsive, in other words capable of changing to suit the device its being viewed on, whether PC, tablet or mobile phone, making reading easier.

There are both good and bad themes, depending on how well they are developed, supported and work, with the best themes working every time WordPress issues new updates. Themes that are bad are often not compatible with WordPress’ updates.

The company involved in this case study had a theme which was no longer compatible with the latest version of WordPress. Every time a new page was created, the site would only display the page listing recent blog posts.

The Solution

A new website was created which was almost an exact replica of the problematic website but using an updated theme and Visual Composer.  Replicating a WordPress site with a new one is possible.

While this may have done the trick with other sites, in this specific case the old theme contained problematic coding to display each page which a webmaster had to manually go through and input each page’s contents into the new, replica site, a painstaking process which had to be done one page at a time.

As this case study highlights, using a well-supported and professional theme for your WordPress site is crucial. It’s also important to ensure it is updated and remains compatible with the latest version of WordPress.

 

 

Leave a Reply