The importance of upgrades, updates and managing the health of your website

For most people, big purchases and investments such as a car or house come with the responsibility of maintaining it. Every 3-4,000 miles, you change the oil in your car so the engine runs at peak performance. For your business website, it really isn’t any different.

It's the unfortunate truth of today’s internet that your website can be secure one day and not the next. According to WebARX Security, a web security software company, almost 300,000 new pieces of malware are created daily by Hackers1. At the same time, developers are defending against these threats and also working every day to improve their plugin or platform. In order to keep your website running securely and at peak performance, you will have to consistently fine tune it. Updates, patches and upgrades are needed to ensure your site is secure and running at its full potential.

For open source-based websites such as WordPress, these regular updates to third-party plugins and to the WordPress codebase are essential to keep your website in the best shape it can be. According to a report on Small Business Trends, the average website is attacked 44 times a day2. Most of the attacks on WordPress sites are on third-party plugins being used to allow added functionality, such as a forms or photo gallery plugins. It is important to monitor and consistently update these plugins. During a single month, some third-party plugins can have as many as five updates. These plugins, if left alone without maintenance, can break functionality, create security holes, and cause performance issues.

CMS Platforms such as Kentico, Sitefinity and Sitecore have different processes and usually do not have to be updated as often. Since these CMS platforms are proprietary, their codebases are kept more secure. Over time, they do release hotfixes, upgrades and patches for their platforms. You should be aware when these updates are released. These hotfixes and updates tend to be a little more complicated than plugin updates on open source platforms, but they are not any less important. Most often than not, professional certified developers are needed to carry out these updates.

Over time, your website needs maintenance and care, just like most things in our lives. For such an important piece of your business’s marketing strategy or core functionality, you should take the time to maintain and keep your website from falling behind.

Installing updates and handling other maintenance tasks can be overwhelming. It doesn’t have to be! With SilverTech’s managed services, we can provide peace of mind that your site is protected, monitored and updated with regular maintenance checks. Let us take care of your website, so you can take care of your business.  

1. https://www.webarxsecurity.com/website-hacking-statistics-2018-february/
2. https://smallbiztrends.com/2018/03/sitelock-website-security-insider-q4-2017.html