Robert Lodi

Safeguard Your Site: The Crucial Role of Regular WordPress Updates in Ensuring Security

As software evolves, and security issues are discovered, it becomes more important to keep your websites updated and current. In this post, we will talk about the role that regular WordPress updates play in safeguarding your site against potential threats and helping to ensure some better site security.

Understanding the WordPress Ecosystem:

Like Excel or Mario Kart or your phone OS – WordPress is software. And since WordPress powers millions of websites globally, it a prime target for cyber attacks. Its popularity attracts the attention of hackers looking for vulnerabilities to exploit and cause you trouble. As new security threats emerge, theme and plugin authors release updates that will help keep your WordPress site safe.

Patching Vulnerabilities:

One of the primary reasons for regular updates is the patching of vulnerabilities. The WordPress community actively monitors and addresses security issues, releasing updates that include fixes for known issues. By staying current with these updates, you are closing security holes and keeping your site and business safer.

Guarding Against Cyber Attacks:

Running an outdated version of WordPress is like leaving the front door of your website wide open for hackers. They often target known vulnerabilities in outdated software, attempting to gain access, inject malicious code, or even take control of your site. Regular updates help prevent this and generally reduce problems for everyone involved.

Enhancing Website Performance:

Beyond security, updates contribute to the overall performance and efficiency of your WordPress site. New versions can come with performance improvements, bug fixes, and optimizations that not only increase security but can also increase site performance.

Strengthening Plugin and Theme Security:

Plugins and themes, while necessary, can also introduce potential vulnerabilities. Most developers continually release updates to address security concerns and improve compatibility. Regularly updating your plugins and themes ensures that you benefit from these enhancements, reducing the risk of security breaches.

Automated Updates: A Prudent Approach, Sometimes:

If you have a new-ish WordPress site, consider enabling automated updates for your WordPress core, plugins, and themes. Automated updates ensure that your site remains protected without requiring personal intervention, reducing the window of vulnerability and minimizing the risk of missing an update. This is not totally fail-safe, but, worth considering especially if you only have a few plugins to manage. This is not perfect, and as your site ages, it may make sense to stop auto-updates. Much like how if you have an older model phone, and it auto-updates to the latest phone operating system – and things get weird.

Regular Backups: A Safety Net:

While updates are crucial, it’s wise to complement them with regular backups. In the event of an unforeseen issue during an update, having a recent backup allows you to quickly restore your site to a stable state, minimizing downtime and potential data loss. Some hosting companies provide backups, or there are third party plugins available that can link to Dropbox or Google Drive to store copies of your data.

Conclusion: Stay Aware, Stay Secure:

The internet and software that runs online is always changing, and hackers and bots get smarter and smarter. Keeping your WordPress site updated will help keep it safer and help close security holes and limit code vulnerabilities. Seriously – it is a lot easier to keep malicious code out of your site, than to remove it if it ever gets in!

One day, I am going to get my old barn finished and in theory move in some power tools. One thing I want a band saw. I’ve been looking on Marketplace and Craigslist and also at some new ones, pretending I have space to put one. 

That’s when I found this.

People, those are square root symbols. Or radicals, if you’re feeling particularly mathy.

Those are not check marks.

It’s 2024. There are unlimited fonts out there, and the tools to use them.

Fire up InDesign or Illustrator, or anything that has type controls. Open the Glyphs window.

Et Voilà. 

See if the font you’re using has a check mark, or, use a font that does, for wherever you need the checkmark. Minion Pro, Zapf Dingbats, Lucida Grande – all are common in the Mac/Adobe world, and all have checkmarks.

As does the free Google font Noto Sans Symbols 2. https://fonts.google.com/noto/specimen/Noto+Sans+Symbols+2

Even in Canva, if you can’t find the glyphs (I cannot find them in Canva!) you can go to a site like https://fsymbols.com, find a checkmark, and paste it right in your Canva file. 

So no need to be radical. Or square. Use proper checkmarks in your documents when you can. It’s easy! Ish.

It’s no secret that we’re being tracked.

But it is both amazing and scary how it works.

Earlier my wife texted me about the NYT Spelling Bee. 

She tried to make a word – peckable – that the game didn’t count as a word. (Sounds like a word. What do I know.)

So being both curious and a little miffed at missing out on a pangram (which she also found), she Googled it. 

And found something called Happy Hens Ultra Peckable Feed. And texted me the Happy Hen logo.

Later in the day, I opened Facebook.

And was presented with a giant post – not an ad, really, a timeline post – about Happy Hen feed.

I never searched for it. I didn’t click it. I don’t have any hens, though I do have a chicken coop.

Something out there tracking us knew someone on this IP address was looking at Happy Hen feed, and thought I’d like to know more about it. (I would not, at the moment.)

So be careful what you search for! And if you start seeing weird ads and posts – chances are someone on your network may be searching for those things even if you are not. Which is sort of creepy.

But at least if I ever do decide to fill up my chicken coop – I know what feed to get. I hear that it’s peckable!

Foundation issues can become a nightmare for homeowners, and also for WordPress site owners. 

Some website problems are easily repairable. A little spackle of SEO here, a fresh coat of paint on the whole plugin situation. Boom. 

But there can be some major issues that aren’t as easy as a trip to the Home Depot or an email to your web guy across town. Sometimes you just need to rebuild your site, from the foundation up. 

To help determine where exactly you are and what options you have to tackle your website improvement project, we have a few questions:

1. How old is your site? Was it built and launched before October 2018?

If your website is built on outdated technology or uses a non-responsive design that can’t be easily updated, starting fresh with modern tools and technologies may be the best choice. WordPress had big changes in November 2018 and not all older themes and builds still work well.

2. Have you had security or hacking problems?

Security isn’t something that can be glossed over or ignored without putting you or your customers at risk. If your site has been compromised or has serious security vulnerabilities, it may be safer for all of you to start fresh.

3. Do you want a new design anyway?

If you are looking to redesign, then also add on a rebuild. Because it is a lot cheaper and more efficient to rebuild in a new design than to try to keep the same design when rebuilding in a new platform.

4. How’s your SEO working for you?

If your website has been hit with severe SEO penalties and it is difficult to recover, starting a new site with a clean slate may be more effective than trying to get your site back on the map. New pages and urls can start fresh with proper SEO and Google indexing.

5. Can you scale up as needed?

Knowing your goals for the future and your site’s capabilities when it comes to meeting those goals is a must. If your site doesn’t allow for your business to grow, such as implementing e-commerce or adding complex features, starting new with a scalable platform can be a better choice.

6. Are you priced out of repairs?

If the cost of fixing your site is nearly as high as building a new one, it may make more sense to invest in a new site and take the opportunity to add updated security, fresh design, and any new features needed for your business and marketing.

7. Will your site meet your marketing and business needs?

If you have a well-defined vision for your marketing that significantly deviates from your current website, starting from scratch can often be a more efficient way to bring that to life. 

On the other hand, sometimes older sites can be fixed.

Welcome to Web Depot

There are a number of reasons why you might decide that a full rebuild wouldn’t be the best idea for your website at the moment, and often less severe issues can be managed by your friendly WordPress developer. 

Some areas to consider when looking at whether you can fix your website are the following:

1. If your content and SEO is in good shape

Updates to content and SEO are easily manageable without a full rebuild. Often SEO is a crucial part of your discoverability that takes time to build up in search engines, so to keep your results running it might be better to attempt to fix the site.

2. If your budget is limited

Budget constraints are often the biggest issue that website owners face when making a decision on keeping the existing website or starting from scratch. If you, like many others, have a budget that would not allow for a full rebuild of your older site, it is important to keep your website working and updated, and backed up, to help prolong its life.

3. If you have smaller issues that can be fixed. 

Broken links, outdated content, minor design flaws. All of these are minor fixes that a skilled developer can help you with, without a full rebuild.

4. If you have dedicated and established users

If you have an established user base who is already familiar with your site format and layout and you know might not be in favor of a drastic change in user experience (tip: most users are not in favor of drastic changes), it might be beneficial to keep the site you have, and also keep it maintained so it stays secure. 

5. If you want to keep your Historical Data*

If you have data, analytics, or content archived that you want to preserve, it is often better to fix your existing site and keep the data available.

6. If you need a brand refresh

If your brand changes or needs updating, it can often be implemented into your existing site, without a full rebuild. Colors, logos, and words/styles can live within the existing structure if the bones of the site are solid.

No matter where you are in your journey or your understanding of what goes into building a website, we are able to help look at all of the factors that will influence your site, your marketing budget, or your goals in the future. 

If you have an older site and you’d like to have it assessed for rebuild or update purposes, https://www.rockpixelscissors.com/free-site-evaluation/ we are happy to evaluate it for you and provide some recommendations and next steps.

*the Google update to G4 may already have removed your historical data if you haven’t archived it. 

Something happened to me the other day that was very unusual.

A few months ago, the old exhaust fan in the bathroom broke. Or, rather, died. It sure sounded like something dying, that’s for sure.

Standing on a ladder with a flashlight, I could make out the manufacturer and model number. I was even able to order a new one, same model, which I thought may make installation easier. Even a slight difference in size can mean making a new hole in the ceiling, or patching something, or some other nonsense. See my post about ceiling fans. I didn’t want to deal with it.

So I put it off, things got busy, and I didn’t want to go in the attic over the summer, so, it sat in the box for a while.

Last weekend it was cooler, and I thought I should get it over with and fix it. The first step in the installation instructions called for removing the fan module from the “can” that goes up recessed into the ceiling. 

Hmm, I thought. Maybe I can just pop that new motor in the old one… and not have to remove/reinstall the entire unit…

And I could. The size, screw holes, and wiring harness all matched the old one in the ceiling that was installed way back who knows when. High marks to NuTone.

What was looking like a day in the attic turned into minutes on the ladder.

This project was a lot easier than I had expected.

And that almost never happens.

Wait for it…

The same thing applies to your website.

You could have a problem or something isn’t doing what you want, and it’s annoying. You may think it’s complicated (read: expensive) to fix. And it may be. 

But it could also be not a big deal, and a web team with decades of experience could get it sorted out fairly efficiently.

It never hurts to ask – so – if you have some website weirdness that you’d like evaluated – let me know. Maybe it’s something we can fix and make the site better, without having to crawl through the attic.

Don’t you just hate it when… your quoted paragraphs look like this? 

Or have you ever even noticed?

The typographic problem here is – the punctuation isn’t “hanging.” That’s when, in this case, the first quotation mark isn’t moved off to the left creating a smooth left margin. 

This is big problem! 🙂

I saw it, and went to fix it. Happily, typographic controls in CSS continue to improve and evolve, and yesterday I was reminded of the ‘hanging-punctuation’ property.

The ‘hanging-punctuation’ property makes it super easy to clean up your quotation marks using 

{hanging-punctuation: first;} (or last, or first and last.)

Since there is limited browser support – only Safari 10+ desktop and mobile at the moment, it still may be easier to do it old-school and adjust as needed for each case with: 

{text-indent: -0.5em; /* Change number based on your font */}

Use whatever method works best for your typefaces and browser needs, as long as you do it! 

And if you need to tighten up more of your website’s typography? We can help – just let us know.