New WordPress Maintenance Plans

Our WordPress Update and Backup Service has just got better!

This post is to let you know about some changes we have made to our WordPress and Back-up service. Read on to find out what has changed and what you can look forward to. Should you have any questions about these changes to our WordPress Maintenance Plans and how it affects your own site please contact us.

Back in 2017 we started offering a new WordPress Update and Back-up service for clients who had their website designed and built by us. I think it is fair to say this service was a real hit. The whole principle behind this service was to take care of the website’s health and security on a monthly basis and give our clients peace of mind that their site was using the latest version of WordPress and benefiting from any security and feature enhancements as new plugins were released.

WordPress 5.5 introduces new auto updates – things go berserk!

However in August 2020 we discovered that we were going to need to alter our current service due to fundamental changes introduced by WordPress. It all came to light when WordPress introduced a new auto update feature in one of their updates. Depending on the hosting set up, some clients websites were updated to the latest versions of WordPress and all their plug-ins overnight when WordPress 5.5 was released.

We started getting calls and emails literally overnight from clients who had found their site was not working as expected. Issues would vary from site to site and there wasn’t too many, however due to the time consuming nature to diagnose the different problems, it meant some clients had to wait before we could get their site back on line. Fortunately those who were affected were understanding about the situation but it didn’t sit well with us – it was a stark wake up call to make sure we find a more robust way to assist our clients when things go wrong.

“Over the past few months we have identified a need to improve our website care plan to ensure the continued optimum security and performance for our clients sites.”

Dean Clamp (Director)

From a website security point of view, the idea behind auto updates is certainly for the best as it ensures a website is up to date and not left vulnerable to attack once any security issues are identified. What had not been taken into account is that automatic updates aren’t the same as human updates.

In an ideal world Pixel Point Design would test the compatibility of updates before pushing them to a live site, in case there were any issues which would inadvertently prevent a site from working. Sometimes plugin developers need time to amend their code to ensure it works with a new release of WordPress, which then means a delay between the new release and a compatible plugin.

Turning off WordPress Auto Update

Thankfully as it is possible to deactivate auto update settings on a website, it has meant we have had the opportunity to delay updates, but the question we now face is how long do you leave it? Previously our service allowed for running WordPress core files, theme and plugin updates once a month. However it became apparent this really needed doing on a weekly basis. As such since we have been updating ALL of our clients’ sites on a weekly basis since August.

Questions about our new WordPress Maintenance Plans?

A new and improved website maintenance service

Hackers are constantly looking to find weaknesses and exploit them and so it has become a real time battle to fix and patch vulnerabilities. We work with WordPress because they have proven themselves to be up to this challenge and push through fixes to close discovered issues on a daily basis. Unfortunately however, these fixes can sometimes have unintended consequences too that can impact the functionality of websites (something a few of our clients have unfortunately experienced recently).

In light of this, as of 31 October 2020 we have launched three new website care packages which will monitor, detect and fix any consequential issues caused by these crucial updates. These new packages, more details of which you will find below, replace our previous website care solution. Clients with our previous care package can rest assured that their existing coverage will be provided through to the end of their existing contract at which point they can choose to move over to one of our new plans or end their cover

We have partnered with WordPress maintenance experts WP Buffs who have a global team who possess all the necessary skills to offer clients 24/7 emergency support, uptime monitoring and weekly WordPress updates and lots more besides. You will be able to find more information on the different packages below. Depending on what type of website you have it will fall into one of the three categories.

“I have no doubt in my mind that the new WordPress Maintenance Plans will offer our clients so much more in the way of website maintenance, security and ongoing support. I’m really looking forward to being able to recommend these new packages to our clients.“
Dean Clamp (Director)