Why Is Updating PHP in Your WordPress Important?

It is a generally advisable practice to keep all your software, apps, backend programming and third party extensions like plugins, themes and APIs updated. Keeping everything updated usually results in best performance. But why is it that? Why do things that worked just fine yesterday need to be updated today for better performances? Why should we perform regular updates?

Well the biggest reason why you should make updates is to obtain optimum speed, security and performance. If your codes are written in PHP in the backend of your WordPress website, keeping PHP updated results in a faster user experience and a better performing and a more secure website.

PHP in WordPress

PHP is the default programming language of WordPress, a website building platform that offers intuitive designing tools. Codes written in PHP essentially translate relevant content into HTML files and send it to the web page visitor. 

This adds efficiency to the website. Instead of setting up new pages every time there is a request made, PHP allows the shuffle between plugins and themes on real time requests. Developers offering the best wordpress development service create separate PHP files for extensions like themes and plugins. These files run parallel which makes the whole operation smoother. 

A very popular method of making the most of PHP’s versatility is to use PHP frameworks to build different blocks for a WordPress website. 

Benefits of Updating PHP in WordPress

There are many reasons why you should update the core programming language and all its libraries in WordPress. The biggest few reasons are the improved compatibility, speed and safety. To optimize the core advantages that we get with PHP, it is essential that we keep it updated. With constant innovations, it is possible to tackle a bug or a performance challenge with updated versions of extensions and programming languages like PHP.

Let us expand upon the primary benefits of updating PHP in your WordPress website.

• Cross Compatibility

WordPress is a platform full of possibilities. It contains block editors, design modules, backend codes and a plethora of libraries, themes and plugins. These elements in WordPress often go through updates. With new features and enhanced functionalities, almost all these mentioned elements avail updates frequently. Not updating the core programming language could lead to performance issues. This could happen because some plugins or themes may require a certain syntax that your older version may not have. 

• Speed

Programming is seeing an evolution like it has never seen before. Developers are taking the help of machine learning and artificial intelligence to shorten the lengths of codes and the sheer time and effort that goes into writing these codes to execute rather simple tasks. With updated libraries of codes and the programming language itself, we may see a lengthy code shortened into a small set offering the same feature or functionality. Not updating the PHP would mean that your programs have to take the same lengthy routes to perform a task that is now enabled through a shorter route. This shortening of routes in terms of task performing leads to increased speed.

• Security

The hackers are running a parallel ecosystem to affect the systems in a negative way. Although the most popular method of threat attacks is SQL injection into the database, a poorly coded program could also lead to vulnerabilities. Most syntax in all the programming languages is common. With most threat attacks in WordPress coming from plugins, a non-updated PHP may not identify this. An updated PHP will work in perfect sync with plugins or themes to avoid any possible attack.  

Conclusion

Updates may eat up our precious time and consume pricey data but they are the most important aspect of a website. The sole reason to stay updated is security as most hackers are at par with the developers in terms of innovation. If you want to stay a step ahead of the attackers, you must keep your weapons updated. This phenomenon could be true for both apps and websites. For WordPress though, regular updates in the extensions needs proper compatibility with the programming language. By updating your PHP, you also enable the better capabilities of themes, plugins and APIs. This not only improves the performance but also speeds up everything. A mere PHP update can change the whole user experience and that alone should be enough for you to consider the updates.