Website maintenance: keeping your WordPress site updated and safe

March 3, 2015

Clare Parkinson

@clareparkinson

15NTC WordPress Day

Website Maintenance

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Website maintenance

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Up and running

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Safe from hackers

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Recovery without drama

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● Prompt updates

● Security

● Backup and recovery

What needs to be done

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You can focus on content

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Money vs time: pay someone

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Money vs time: do it yourself

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WordPress managed hosting

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● Updates to WordPress

core

● Security: scans and

protection

● Daily backups

● Restore from backup

WordPress managed hosting

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Update themes and

plugins.

Managed Hosting doesn’t:

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Do It Yourself

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● Updates to WordPress

core, plugins, themes

● Security: scans and

protection

● Backups

● Restore from backup

DIY website maintenance

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3.7.0 -> 3.7.1 Updates

automatically!

3.7.1 3.8 You

have to do it.

WordPress Core updates

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When to update?

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Plugin: WP Updates Notifier

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Update on a staging site.

or

Update behind a “Coming Soon”

screen

or

Update in a low-traffic period.

Update Precautions

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Restore files from backup

or

Or get last known working version

of plugin from Repository and

reinstall via FTP

Then get help from a pro.

If an update goes wrong

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Security

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● Updates

● Login security

● Get security

notifications

● Delete what you don’t

need

How not to get hacked

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● Use strong usernames:

Don’t use “admin”, don’t

use your domain name.

● Use strong passwords.

Login security

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Use a plugin:

● Brute Force Login

Protection

● iThemes Security

● WordFence

Limit login attempts

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Track who’s trying to log

in, what users are doing.

● WP Audit Security Log

● WP Security Log

Track user activity

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Get security notifications

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Delete what you’re not using

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Backups

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Backups

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Your host can restore

from backup.

● Maybe not recent

● Maybe not free

Your host’s backups

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● UpdraftPlus

● WordPress Backup to

DropBox

● BackWPup Free

● BackUpWordPress

Free backup plugins

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● Database: your content

and settings

● Files: Theme, plugins,

and media

Make your own backups

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● wp-content/themes

● wp-content/plugins

● wp-content/uploads

Files to back up

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Schedule your backups

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Database daily + files

weekly

or

Database + files daily

or

Database + files weekly

Schedule your backups

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Offsite backup

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● Click to restore:

UpdraftPlus database

● Others: download from

remote, unzip, ftp to

your server

Restore from backup

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Updated, secure, backed up

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You can focus on content

March 3, 2015

Clare Parkinson

@clareparkinson

15NTC WordPress Day

Website Maintenance

Any questions?