{"id":160,"date":"2026-10-24T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bricks.avokadodesign.com\/entretien-wordpress-mises-a-jour\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T16:44:57","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T16:44:57","slug":"wordpress-maintenance-updates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/avokadodesign.com\/en\/wordpress-maintenance-updates\/","title":{"rendered":"WordPress maintenance: what happens if you don&#8217;t update your site?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Your WordPress site has been running fine since launch. Why touch it? Because a website isn&#8217;t a printed brochure: it&#8217;s software, and software that isn&#8217;t updated ages quickly. Here&#8217;s what actually happens when maintenance is neglected, and what good maintenance includes.<\/p>\n<h2>What a WordPress site is made of<\/h2>\n<p>A WordPress site has three layers that each evolve on their own:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>WordPress itself<\/strong>, updated several times a year;<\/li>\n<li><strong>the theme<\/strong>, which gives the site its look;<\/li>\n<li><strong>plugins<\/strong>, which add forms, the store, SEO and so on.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Underneath, there&#8217;s also the server and its PHP version, which hosts upgrade regularly. When one layer moves forward and the others don&#8217;t, problems start.<\/p>\n<h2>5 risks of an unmaintained website<\/h2>\n<h3>1. Getting hacked<\/h3>\n<p>The vast majority of WordPress security holes are found in outdated plugins or themes. When a flaw is discovered, a fix is released, but it only protects the sites that install it. The bots scanning the web for vulnerable sites never take a break.<\/p>\n<h3>2. A site that breaks overnight<\/h3>\n<p>An automatic update by your host, a plugin that&#8217;s no longer compatible, and your contact form stops working, sometimes without anyone noticing for weeks.<\/p>\n<h3>3. No usable backup<\/h3>\n<p>Many businesses discover they have no recent backup at the exact moment they need one. Without a backup, an outage or a hack can mean rebuilding the site.<\/p>\n<h3>4. A slower site with lower rankings<\/h3>\n<p>Google takes a site&#8217;s speed and security (HTTPS) into account. A slow site with errors or a security warning loses visitors and positions.<\/p>\n<h3>5. Exposed personal information<\/h3>\n<p>If your site collects names, emails or phone numbers, a hack can expose that information. Law 25 governs the protection of personal information, and a security incident can trigger reporting obligations. Prevention is better.<\/p>\n<h2>What good maintenance includes<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Updates to WordPress, the theme and plugins, tested before they&#8217;re applied;<\/li>\n<li>regular backups, stored somewhere other than the site&#8217;s server;<\/li>\n<li>uptime monitoring, so you know quickly if the site goes down;<\/li>\n<li>protection against common attacks;<\/li>\n<li>a report telling you what was done;<\/li>\n<li>ideally, a few hours of small edits to keep your content current.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Do it yourself or hand it off?<\/h2>\n<p>You can maintain the site yourself if you&#8217;re comfortable: back up before every update, update one plugin at a time and check your site after each change. Most of our clients would rather spend that time on their business.<\/p>\n<p>Our maintenance plans start at $59 a month (updates, weekly backup, monitoring). The Pro plan, at $109 a month, adds daily backups, security and one hour of edits per month. All the details are on the <a href=\"https:\/\/avokadodesign.com\/en\/services\/website-maintenance\/\">Website maintenance<\/a> page.<\/p>\n<p>Not sure what shape your site is in? <a href=\"https:\/\/avokadodesign.com\/en\/contact\/\">Write to us<\/a>: we can run a quick check and tell you where things stand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hacks, outages, missing backups: the real risks of a neglected WordPress site, and what good maintenance includes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized-en-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/avokadodesign.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/avokadodesign.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/avokadodesign.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avokadodesign.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avokadodesign.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/avokadodesign.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":192,"href":"https:\/\/avokadodesign.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions\/192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/avokadodesign.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avokadodesign.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avokadodesign.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}