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There are a few nasty things that can happen to your WordPress site. That depends on the length of time since you’ve last taken actions to maintain your site. One disastrous thing is all you need, i.e. getting hacked!
Short-Term Lack of Maintenance Issues
If you don’t maintain your website for short durations, say a month or two, it’s possible that updates to the core have been made that include security patches that are important. This often means that if your site isn’t updated ( Note: most sites are auto updated for security patches ) then your website is susceptible to getting hacked.
As for the overall experience, you might not notice any major issues since dramatic changes don’t typically happen from one version to the next, especially with minor version updates.
As for your themes and plugins, they should still work as before but the issue of security patches also applies in the case of themes and plugins.
Your database also needs maintenance every so often. If you don’t optimize your database, over time you will have reduced performance on your website. Consider database optimization like defragmenting your computers hard drive.
Long-Term Lack of Maintenance Issues
If it’s been serious time since you’ve updated your WordPress installation, themes, plugins and optimized your database, then you will likely start to notice issues including the visual appearance of your site. This is caused by deprecated code or code no longer supported by both WordPress and or PHP or the Front-end framework used.
Functionality can also change if the plugin is abandoned or is so out of date that the code used is no longer supported by WordPress.
The security of your website might also be compromised since most security issues for previous versions of WordPress are easily found on websites using the older versions of the WordPress Core, themes and plugins. Your database is likely seriously cluttered and in desperate need of maintenance.
Automation – How to make maintenance easy?
The 3 tips below will make it extremely easy to self-manage your WordPress website. Note: I still recommend logging into your website at least once a week just to make sure everything is functioning properly.
:: Automate the process of backing up your website database and files by using this plugin.
UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin
:: Automate the process of updating the WordPress core, themes and plugins by using this plugin.
:: Automate the process of optimizing your database by using this plugin.
Read our new e-book ==> What If Your Entire Website Was Deleted Right Now?
If you want some help and don’t want to take any chances, consider our most affordable WordPress Maintenance Service packages. Then give Marcia a call at 561-906-3436.