Hi, mods pls delete if not aloud.
I recently started volunteering at a non profit and noticed their website was extremely clunky and had lots of dead links. I asked if I could take a look at the backend and needless to say it’s a mess.
It’s running wp 5.9.2 and EVERYTHING (plug-ins, theme, and I’m sure more) is needing updates.
Is there a certain order I should update things in?
How long should we expect the site to be down for while WP is updating?
Is there a chance of everything just… breaking? We don’t have money to hire an emergency developer if it does break.
Please ELI5 and assume I know nothing. If this is going to be too hard of a project for an absolute beginner please be honest, we can’t afford to have no website even though ours is currently barely functioning.
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Create test environment.
Copy site to test.
Start with updating php to 8.2
Then update wordpress
If it still works you’re in extreme luck.
Changes of 0 problems is 0
First, Give Thanks that it’s not been hacked.
What version is PHP?
Are you getting backups? Start with that.
Then update core, then everything else.
Backup the site first, then use Wpfence free to check security, etc and clone the site to use offline on local pc and then use that version to test and investigate. replicate to the live when your happy with changes.
**First, backup everything, files and database.** Do not do anything before you have a valid, working backup.
After that, update the plugins, themes and last the core. If at any moment the site breaks, assume it’s the plugins and disable them manually from ftp/file manager.
The update process should take a few seconds and up to a few minutes, depending on your hosting server.
If you want I will have a look for you. I’ve been a WordPress dev for well over 10 years. I’m not promising I will do it for you, but as a non profit I will certainly donate some time to get you a plan together. DM me if you like.
get backup first in order to safe the data
I recently moved a 3 year old woocomerce website from php7.3.. on paper just upgrade the plugins and theme followed by wordpress core and then move the website to php8.1 host. However we got screwed first by facing premium plugins needing to be paid first. Followed by abandoned plugin that was a bitch to replace with an alternative. Then you face plugins refust to upgrade unless php is atleast 8.1.it was a fun ride 😅
Make backup of everything.
Then check for updates (plugins, themes and wordpress itself)
I think also checking stuff like analytics, hosting settings (php version for instance) and pagespeeds.