How to maintain, backup, update WordPress & plugins

What’s New in WordPress 6.6

Major Changes

The WordPress 6.6 version, released on July 16, 2024, includes the following major changes:

• New Block Theme Features
  Users can now create and manage block patterns and templates flexibly, which can be reused throughout the site.
• Enhanced Performance Optimization
  Includes improved resource loading and data caching, resulting in faster site loading speeds.
• Improved Security Features
  Introduces more security checks and protection measures to enhance site security.
• Expanded Multilingual Support
  Adds support for multilingual sites, making managing multilingual content easier and more efficient.
• New Plugin and Theme Developer Tools
  Provides a series of new APIs and development tools to help developers create and manage plugins and themes more easily.

Unofficial Release Notes and Features of WordPress 6.6

WordPress 6.6

• WPBeginner
  What’s New in WordPress 6.6 (Features and Screenshots) (wpbeginner.com)

What’s New in WordPress 5.5

That’s not the point of this article, you can review them specifically through authority refs below.

• WordPress official
  https://wordpress.org/news/2020/08/eckstine/
• SiteGround
  https://www.siteground.com/blog/whats-new-in-wordpress-5-5-screenshots-and-tips/
• Kinsta
  https://kinsta.com/blog/wordpress-5-5/

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Version 5.5.1

On September 1, 2020, WordPress 5.5.1 was released to the public.

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Tools We Might Need to Use in This Practice

Backup / Restore plugins

• WPVivid or UpdraftPlus

Plugins related to WordPress core

• WP Downgrade, Enable jQuery Migrate Helper

Advanced purpose (You must know what you are doing clearly)

• WPVivid Pro*
• WP Reset, WP Reset Pro*

All we need here is the back-end of WordPress without file permissions issue. WP-CLI, SFTP, and other ways through WordPress management services (e.g. ManagedWP, MainWP) won’t be mentioned in this article.

*: It’s a paid version, affiliate links might be included.

Difference Between Backup and Staging

Backup

Backups are for reverting to a previous version when a problem arises on the site.

For example, you run an update on your website and it causes your site to malfunction. You find that plugins are not compatible with the new version of WordPress. It would take considerable time to update these plugins or find replacements. To solve the issue immediately and get your site back to normal, you can restore your backup.

Backups come in handy when things go wrong such as botched updates, human errors, the presence of malware, and so on.

Pros:

• Could be done manually and automatically(scheduled).
• Could be used specifically and separately from databases, individual plugins, themes, and directories for conditions to all files for the whole website or machine(server level).
• Highly elasticity and handy.

Cons:

• Will affect your live site.

Staging

Staging enables you to create a clone of your WordPress website. This is done specifically for development. You can try out new themes, plugins, designs, and layouts. You can test out updates and even test restore your backup! None of the changes you make will affect your live site.

Pros:

• Won’t affect your live site (live site still might be affected in some cases).

Cons:

• It takes time way more than backup.
• You might need to take care of the modification of the database and files in the staging period in some cases.

Considering the popularity of both of them. We chose Backup for the demo in this article and meetup purposes.

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Step 1
Backup

You can choose one of the below methods.

1. Run a complete backup.
2. Run a complete backup of the website excluding files under /wp-content/uploads path.
3. Run backups through WPVivid individually or skip this, just rely on the Rollback function with WPVivid Pro.

(Practice Time)

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Step 2
Check The Compatibility of Plugins & Themes

Checking, and reviewing changelogs is always a good habit!

(Practice Time)

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Step 3
Update plugins & themes that are compatible with WordPress.

Plugins

Anything you’ve activated, but keep in mind the plugins which can be seen their compatibility with WordPress or other main plugins like WooCommerce, page builder (no page builder”s” in one website, OK?).

Theme
Twenty Twenty for example.

Changelog of theme Twenty Twenty
https://wordpress.org/support/article/twenty-twenty-changelog/

Changelogs of themes are much harder to find than plugins. No matter if one is on https://wordpress.org/themes/, Themeforest, or any official website of the themes.

Step 4
Update to WordPress 5.5!

(Practice Time)

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Step 5
Check, Check, Check

Or wait for someone to check the website and report to you – Not recommended.

Step 6 ( if necessary )

• Install & activate Enable jQuery Migrate Helper to solve the issue that happened after updating to WordPress 5.5.
• Restore from what backup you’ve got.
• Downgrade WordPress with WP Downgrade.
• Rollback plugins/themes with WPVivid Pro.
• Switch to the WordPress version you like, and restore from a snapshot by WP Reset, and WP Reset Pro.
  

(Practice Time)

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Final
Happy Ending? Hope So!

There won’t be any real final work for a website you’d like to keep running unless the website is terminated.
So, just keep making it better and better for your purpose.