Simple DIY Guide to Confidently Manage Your WordPress Updates

Updating WordPress might seem like a simple task—click the update button and move on, right?

Not exactly. While updates are essential for security, performance, and compatibility, blindly updating everything can cause your site to break. Understanding how updates work and learning how to safely update WordPress plugins and core files will save you from headaches, downtime, and unexpected errors.

This guide will walk you through what an update really is, why things break, and how to confidently manage your WordPress updates like a pro.

What is an Update Really?

Before diving into the update process, it's important to understand what an update actually does and why it matters.

A WordPress website is made up of multiple components—the WordPress core, themes, and plugins—each maintained by different developers. When an update is released, it usually includes bug fixes, security patches, new features, or compatibility improvements.

However, because your website is essentially a curated collection of code from different sources, updates can sometimes create conflicts. Here’s why:

• WordPress Core Updates: The WordPress core itself evolves to stay secure and compatible with newer PHP versions.
• Plugin Updates: Developers update plugins to patch vulnerabilities, introduce new features, and ensure compatibility with the latest WordPress version.
• Theme Updates: Often released to improve design, security, and compatibility with WordPress core and plugins.

Not all developers update their code frequently, which means some plugins may fall behind in compatibility with the latest version of WordPress. This can lead to site errors, broken functionality, or even crashes when updates are applied.

That’s How Things Break

A common reason websites break after updates is incompatibility between plugins, themes, and WordPress core. For example:

• A plugin update might rely on a WordPress function that doesn’t exist in the version you're using.
• A WordPress core update might introduce a breaking change that affects outdated plugins.
• A theme update may conflict with custom modifications you've made.

How to Safely Update WordPress

Now that you know why things break, let’s talk about how to safely update WordPress without taking unnecessary risks.

Generally, the safest approach is to update in a staging environment first. Since every website has different levels of complexity, following this method covers the most cases and ensures that potential issues don’t impact your live site.

1. Always Take a Full Backup Before Updating

Before updating anything, back up your website. If something goes wrong, you’ll be able to restore your site to its previous working state.

Recommended backup solutions:

• UpdraftPlus – Scheduled backups and easy restore options.
• BlogVault – Incremental backups that don’t slow down your site.
• Jetpack Backup – Real-time backups and one-click restores.

A good rule of thumb: Never update WordPress without a backup in place.

2. Always Test Updates on a Staging Site First

A staging site is a clone of your live website where you can test updates before applying them to the actual site. This prevents breaking your website for visitors.

Many hosting providers offer built-in staging environments, including:

• Kinsta
• WP Engine
• SiteGround

Sample Update Checklist

Here’s the recommended approach:

1. Back up your site – This is your safety net. If something goes wrong, you can restore everything instantly.
2. Test updates on a staging site – Never update live first. A staging site lets you verify everything works before rolling updates onto your main site.
3. Update WordPress Core first – Since the core system affects everything else, updating it first ensures plugins and themes work with the latest version.
4. Update your theme – The theme determines site styling and functionality, so it should be updated after WordPress Core to maintain compatibility.
5. Update plugins one by one – This makes it easier to pinpoint which update might have caused an issue if something breaks.
6. Check your site for errors after each update – Browse key pages, test functionality, and review logs to ensure everything is working as expected.

This is the safest approach to plugin updates and recommended for DIY business owners or admins who aren't familiar with the overall codebase, which is essentially a combination of WordPress core, themes, plugins, and custom code modifications.

Keeping updates structured prevents issues that could otherwise be time-consuming and costly to fix.

The Importance of Selective Plugin Usage

One more thing about plugin updates—your choice of plugins matters just as much as keeping them updated. Every plugin you install adds code to your site, and not all plugins are created equal. Some are well-maintained and optimized, while others are bloated, poorly coded, or abandoned altogether. Having too many plugins increases the risk of conflicts, slows down your site, and makes troubleshooting updates far more difficult. The safest approach is to be intentional about which plugins you use and to keep your plugin stack as lean as possible. This leads us to the best practices for managing plugins.

Best Practices for Managing Plugins:

• Use only the plugins you need – Remove unused or inactive plugins.
• Choose well-maintained plugins – Regularly updated plugins are less likely to cause issues.
• Check reviews and compatibility – Ensure plugins work with the latest WordPress version.
• Avoid relying on outdated or abandoned plugins – If a plugin hasn’t been updated in over a year, consider alternatives.

Here's a recommended criteria to adopt in your plugin selection process:

Once you find a plugin that meets these criteria, you can go an extra step and test the plugin on a staging site. This allows you to see how it behaves with your existing setup before introducing it to your live environment. If a staging site isn’t available, at the very least, create a full backup of your site before installing the new plugin. This simple precaution can save you from unexpected compatibility issues, downtime, or performance slowdowns.

What to Do If You Update a Plugin and Things Break

If you're following this guide, you're updating your plugins one by one and verifying that they don’t break the site. But what happens when you run into a plugin update that does break your site? Fortunately, you have options.

Roll Back the Plugin to a Previous Version

The easiest way to fix a broken plugin update is to roll it back to the previous version. You can do this with a free plugin like WP Rollback.

How to Roll Back a Plugin Update Using WP Rollback:

1. Install and activate the WP Rollback plugin from the WordPress plugin repository.
2. Go to Plugins > Installed Plugins.
3. Find the plugin that broke your site and click the Rollback option.
4. Select the previous version from the list and confirm the rollback.
5. Test your site to ensure everything is working properly.

Alternative Option: Restore a Backup

If rolling back a plugin update is too confusing or doesn't work, the best option is to restore your backup from before you started updating plugins. This will return your site to a working state.

Keep in mind that if you restore a backup, you’ll need to reapply any plugin updates except for the one that caused the issue. Take it slow, update carefully, and verify each plugin works before moving to the next one.

What Do You Do with a Plugin That Can’t Be Updated?

If a plugin update keeps causing issues and rolling it back isn’t a permanent solution, it’s time to dig deeper.

Check for Known Issues and Workarounds

• Visit the plugin’s support forums on WordPress.org or Facebook groups.
• Check GitHub or the developer’s website for bug reports or patches.
• See if other users are experiencing the same issue—sometimes plugin developers release quick fixes.

Contact the Plugin’s Support Team

If you can’t find a solution, reach out to the plugin developer. Submit a support ticket explaining the issue. Many developers are willing to help or may add your issue to their to-do list for a future update.

When to Move On from a Plugin

If a plugin isn’t getting updates, lacks support, or keeps breaking your site, it may be time to find an alternative. Leaving outdated plugins installed can lead to security vulnerabilities, especially for sites handling sensitive data like WooCommerce stores or membership sites.

That said, if your site is mostly static and doesn’t store customer information, no one will shame you for leaving an old plugin alone—as long as it’s not causing major security risks. But if the plugin is critical to your site’s functionality, you’ll need to rethink your setup and consider switching to a better-maintained or custom solution.

Conclusion

WordPress updates aren’t exciting, and I know that they feel like a chore. But when neglected, they have a way of turning into expensive problems.

I’ve spent a lot of time and made a lot of money fixing sites that broke simply because business owners or admins didn’t have a structured update process in place.

The good news? After reading this guide, you should have everything you need to avoid dishing out money to have a pro developer fix your site.