Hopefully you log into your WordPress administration area on a regular basis to see if there are updates (or maybe you are using WordFence or another tool that alerts you).
Before you check the check boxes or otherwise press the update button, are you taking the following measures to protect the investment of time you have in your site?
- Backup prior to updates; be sure your backup is handling the mysql WordPress database as well as all of your WordPress content.
- Read the release notes (details) / change log.
You may be surprised that some plugins what you to take very specific actions after the update in order for the update to be successful.
Case in point was a recent update to Relevanssi required users to “deactivate and reactivate Relevanssi in order to make the database changes happen.”
Since we tell our children to look before they cross the street, should we not also look before we update (backing up first as well)?