Written by: 
Rafal Kukla | Published on: 23 February 2020 | Edited on: 6 April 2023
If you use Wordpress then you have no doubt heard about plugins or installed them. Plugins are essentially apps that you can utilise on your Wordpress site to assist you in completing certain tasks.
Plugins have come under much scrutiny from a substantial amount of Wordpress users because of the number of times they need to be updated, sometimes the updates fail and sometimes users are afraid to update their plugins even though not updating them could result in them having security issues on their site.
Today, we’ll go over the topic of Wordpress plugins and explain a little bit more about them and how to update them.
Why Are Plugins Used?
Why Do Wordpress Plugins Need To Be Updated?
Plugins on Wordpress have been developed and designed by a separate company or organisation outside of Wordpress. The reason that Wordpress works so well is that anyone can develop their own apps and make them available for other Wordpress users to take advantage of. This means that they are appealing to companies research and development aspirations and thus encourages them to develop great apps that everyone can use/purchase and take advantage of.
Often when developers update or add features to their self-developed plugins, users who have it installed on their site, will need to upgrade the plugin to be able to use those new features. Often people who are not interested in updated versions fail to update their plugins and more often than not this results in the current version of their plugin not working as it should.
The best advice we could give you is to look out for plugin update alerts, sometimes you’ll be given notice of when the update needs to take place and update as and when prompted to do so. Many plugin owners are also very aware of online security and in the best interests of their users will prompt regular updates to increase the plugins security level and blog out intruders.
How Often Should I Update My Plugins?
As mentioned above Plugins regularly get updated by the plugin creator. This ensures plugins are running correctly on your site and keeps your site functional and secure. Once an update is available for a specific plugin then it should be updated as soon as possible. You may receive an alert letting you know when you need to update it or you may have to check on a regular basis to ensure each of your plugins is up to date and the version that it needs to be.
It is especially crucial that you update your plugins if the plugin creators update is aimed at fixing security, bug and vulnerability issues.
It is not a good idea to ignore plugin updates as this may give hackers an advantage when trying to access your website.
If you aren’t comfortable updating your own plugins then hiring a Wordpress management company will go a long way in helping to keep your site up and functioning as it should be.
What’s The Easiest Way To Update Wordpress Plugins?
How Do I Troubleshoot A WordPress Plugin?
One of the best ways to troubleshoot your plugins is to use a plugin that will troubleshoot for you. A good plugin that could do this for you is called plugin detective. This plugin troubleshoots the plugin you have on your site for you, saving you time and quickly finding the issue. Once the problem with the plugin is found the plugin can easily be deactivated. Once this is done you can then fix the issue with the specific plugin.
If you aren’t keen on doing this yourself then get in touch, one of our team could help you manage your sites.
Where is my WordPress plugin conflict?
If you find you have a plugin conflict on your site you need to determine which of your plugins is causing it. The best way to find a conflict is to disable all non-yoast plugins. After this if you have a plugin conflict it should now be fixed. Now it’s time to find out which plugins are causing a conflict by re-activating the other plugins one at a time once you find the conflict which has returned at the time of activating the plugins one by one you will find the culprit.