How To Keep Your WordPress Installation Securely Updated

Updating your WordPress installation is important because it allows your site to get automatic security updates without any intervention from you.

If you do not take action and update your site when new security patches or newer versions are released, your site will remain vulnerable.

Before you get started, it's a good idea to back up your website.

This means if there are any issues you can restore your website.

There are four ways to update to WordPress on our hosting infrastructure:

1. Log into your WordPress Administration area and under Dashboard > Updates, click “Update now” or via a URL like http://example.com/wordpress/wp-admin/upgrade.php where "example.com" represents your website domain.
2. If you have command-line access, you can use WP-CLI and run wp core update and it will take care of everything for you.
3. Use our 1-click Updater to upgrade to the next released version.
4. Manually download the latest version from WordPress.org and use an SFTP client to upload it to your site.

Be sure not to overwrite your wp-config file or your /wp-content folder.

If you are using our 1-Click WordPress Automatic Installer, you can also upgrade your WordPress installations from there.

1. To Upgrade Scripts, click on the link in the Softaculous Enduser panel as shown in the below image.
2. Once done, you will be redirected to the page which will show all the outdated scripts that are to be updated.
3. Now click on the Blue color Icon to go to the upgrade page.
4. You will now be redirected to the upgrade page where you will be asked for confirmation.
5. Click on the Upgrade button to upgrade the script. Once the upgrade process is completed Softaculous will provide the links to access your updated installation.
6. Click on the links provided and this should redirect you directly to the site page or the admin homepage whichever you choose.

Updating WordPress Manually

1. Get the latest WordPress zip (or tar.gz) file.
2. Unpack the zip file that you downloaded.
3. Deactivate plugins.
4. Delete the old wp-includes and wp-admin directories on your web host (through your FTP or shell access).
5. Using FTP or your shell access, upload the new wp-includes and wp-admin directories to your web host, in place of the previously deleted directories.
6. Upload the individual files from the new wp-content folder to your existing wp-content folder, overwriting existing files. Do NOT delete your existing wp-content folder. Do NOT delete any files or folders in your existing wp-content directory (except for the one being overwritten by new files).
7. Upload all new loose files from the root directory of the new version to your existing wordpress root directory.

NOTE - you should replace all the old WordPress files with the new ones in the wp-includes and wp-admin directories and sub-directories, and in the root directory (such as index.php, wp-login.php and so on). Don't worry - your wp-config.php will be safe.

Be careful when you come to copying the wp-content directory. You should make sure that you only copy the files from inside this directory, rather than replacing your entire wp-content directory. This is where your themes and plugins live, so you will want to keep them. If you have customized the default or classic themes without renaming them, make sure not to overwrite those files, otherwise, you will lose your changes. (Though you might want to compare them for new features or fixes..)

Lastly, you should take a look at the wp-config-sample.php file, to see if any new settings have been introduced that you might want to add to your own wp-config.php.

If you have caching enabled, clear the cache at this point so the changes will go live immediately.

Otherwise, visitors to your site (including you) will continue to see the old version (until the cache updates).

Your update is now complete, so you can go in and enable your Plugins again. If you have issues with logging in, try clearing cookies in your browser.