Andrew Nacin

I must say this is one of the reasons I love the WordPress blogging platform. It is really surprising that for a free software, the WordPress team are never tired of working to ensure that the platform is up to date. We must really give kudos to the WordPress team!

Unfortunately, many users, either because they have had issues with updating sometime in the past or because they have implemented some customizations which may be over ridden during the update, never care to update when there is a new version.

The truth is updating your wordpress blog to the newest version have more benefits than trying to keep your customized features. In this article I want give you a few reasons why you should keep your wordpress blog up to date by ensuring that you are running the latest version.

Why You Should Update Your WordPress Blog

here are a few reasons why you should update to the latest version of wordpress:

1.    Security – Just like the latest update, wordpress 3.4.2, most of the updates are security updates which if neglected can cause serious problems later on. You should note that because of the popularity of WordPress for building e-commerce sites and as a CMS platform being used by millions of businesses, it is one of the most targeted platforms by hackers. A WordPress security update will always aim to fix such a problem before it happens.

For example, in announcing this latest update, Andrew Nacin said:

“Version 3.4.2 also fixes a few security issues and contains some security hardening. The vulnerabilities included potential privilege escalation and a bug that affects multisite installs with un-trusted users. These issues were discovered and fixed by the WordPress security team.”

2.    Bug Fixes – It is interesting to note that apart from security issues most of the updates are maintenance updates aimed at fixing bugs discovered after an earlier version was released. Just like the security update, maintenance updates are also very importance because not updating will make your blog vulnerable to unwanted problems down the road.

Again the 3.4.2 version just released is also a maintenance update.  Here again is the blog post announcing the update:

“After nearly 15 million downloads since 3.4 was released not three months ago, we’ve identified and fixed a number of nagging bugs, including:

• Fix some issues with older browsers in the administration area.

• Fix an issue where a theme may not preview correctly, or its screenshot may not be displayed.

• Improve plugin compatibility with the visual editor.

• Address pagination problems with some category permalink structures.

• Avoid errors with both oEmbed providers and trackbacks.

• Prevent improperly sized header images from being uploaded.”

Now, take a look at those issues again. Do you really think you would want to ignore such very important vulnerability issues? I for one wouldn’t dare!

3. Feature Enhancements – This is another reason why you should update to the latest of version of WordPress. The truth is that most times the updates are nothing but additional features being introduced.  The WordPress team and developers are always working to keep up to date with new trends bringing in new features and enhancing existing ones. The good part of it all is that all of these come without any cost to the users! Frankly, I don’t see any reason why you wouldn’t want to take advantage of such updates! These updates will not only improve your use of the wordpress blogging platform but can also enhance your site’s functionality.

Indeed, the above may not be much but when you consider what could happen if you don’t update your WordPress blogs I’m sure you would regard the above as very important reasons to update right now.

I wouldn’t draw the curtains on this post without pointing out that updating to the latest version can really be a breeze! Understanding the challenges involved in updating to new versions (I have faced such challenges a few times before the automatic update feature was introduced!), the good team at WordPress came up, some time ago, with a way to easily and automatically update your wordpress blog right from your  blog’s dashboard.

Now, it is important to note again that though updating has been made real easy, you should take precautions like backing up your files and database before updating as something could go wrong when updating.  Besides, if you have done any form of customization to your themes or any plugin, backing up before updating is a must as not doing that can lead to losing the customizations.

Time to update to WordPress 3.4.2!

That is it for now. I hope I have been able to convince you to take the bold step in updating to the latest version. So, why wait any longer, go on now get WordPress 3.4.2!

If in any way you are still worried on how to go about it, I will be doing a new post later on where you will receive a step by step guide on how to update your wordpress blog. You are free to wait for that post!

Over to you: I’ll love to hear from you and also to connect with you in the comments below. Feel free and share with us your experiences in updating wordpress blogs. You can also post your questions if there is any and I’ll do my best to answer them.

BTW. Click here if you are having challenges with your wordpress blog setup or you simply desire some customization to enhance your blog’s functionality! 

The post WordPress 3.4.2 Update Announced – Why Updating Your WordPress Blog Regularly Is Important! appeared first on SEOWebContentScribe.com.

No related posts.