How do you update and maintain your website administration plugin without breaking your site?

The best practice is to test updates on a staging site first. I take a full backup of my website, then manually install all updates, including plugins. If any issues arise, you can quickly revert to the backup or troubleshoot in the staging environment.

Backing up your website is like wearing a seatbelt: it's essential for a safe online ride. Consider this: with a dependable backup, even if an update fails, your site will stay intact. It's your digital safety net, providing peace of mind and smooth navigation during any update storm. So, remember to backup before you open that plugin update!

Here’s how to update and maintain your website administration plugin without turning your site into a digital disaster: Backup Before Updates: - Keep a recent backup—your website’s time machine for when things go south. Hold Off on Updates: - Wait a bit before updating. Sometimes developers mess up, and no one likes a surprise. Test on a Staging Site: - Treat updates like a dress rehearsal. Test them out safely before going live. Update One by One: - Slow and steady—update individually so you know who to blame if things go wrong. Monitor Post-Update: - Keep an eye on site performance. It’s your website’s routine check-up. Have a Rollback Plan: - Be ready to roll back if needed. It’s your website’s emergency parachute.

Verify plugin compatibility before updating to prevent conflicts and site breakdowns by reading reviews, changelogs, and compatibility information.

Not everyone has a backup option available (or may choose not to pay for the additional feature on their server), and honestly, I wouldn't recommend it for routine plugin updates if you are backing up your site prior to making any changes. If you are not able to back up your site, definitely create a staging area before doing any type of updates to your site. This way, you can see if any updates will crash your site. If all goes well, you can simply push the staging site to live. Make sure to destroy the staging environment, as it does not automatically update with changes from the live site. You will have to recreate the staging site each time you want to make updates to ensure the latest information is present.

Before clicking 'update', give your website a test run! Staging sites allow you to test new plugins without the audience. So, enter the stage, make your adjustments, and only push the large 'go live' button when you're certain the presentation is faultless. Your viewers will appreciate you!

This is clearly the most important thing: if you want to ensure there are no service interruptions, you need to test before deploying. I also recommend having at least two servers in load balancing to serve visitors. This way, when you need to update, you direct all traffic to server 1, update server 2 at your own pace, and then switch once everything is OK. Finally, you restore the normal traffic distribution. Of course, the database is shared, so if the update impacts it, things can get trickier.

Consider plugin updates to be similar to room renovations: making one change at a time ensures that any leaks are discovered before they flood the house. It is better to update them separately, keeping a close eye on each tweak's impact, rather than risking a chain reaction of errors with a bulk update.